


edge of sea and sky

by euphemea



Series: edge of sea and sky [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Fluff, Implied Sexual Content, Language Barrier, Light Angst, M/M, Miklan-typical Child Abuse, Political Drama, Slow Burn, background Dedue/Dimitri
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-02-26 18:33:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 35,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21773074
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphemea/pseuds/euphemea
Summary: Here, in this small stretch of space, he wasn’t Sylvain José Gautier. He was no one—not an heir, not nobility, not even necessarily human. He was just the boy the sea had swallowed and spat back out, dropped to his fate by his brother, more than ten years older and still as scared as the child who’d woken here for the first time.Sylvain stepped further, letting the water rise to his ankles.This place wasn’t home, but it wasn’t worse than one either.
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: edge of sea and sky [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1641931
Comments: 87
Kudos: 218
Collections: Sylvix Squad Super Stories





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> ~~I've been slowly working on this idea since Sylvix Week back in October, and I hope you all enjoy it! I'm hoping to update once every 1-2 weeks, so please look for the next chapter around Christmas.~~  
>  Trying for monthly-ish updates! Thanks for your patience. Updated the fic summary as well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to [Cha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akhikosanada) and [Elliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scatteringmyashes) for betaing for me!
> 
> Warning that the first section includes Miklan-typical violence and a depiction of near-drowning, so please skip to the second section ("Everything felt heavy. Sylvain’s arms, his legs, his head—everything ached. ") if this is triggering to you!

“Miklan, look!”

Sylvain’s voice rang out, clear and high over the rush of wind whipping past, his eyes bright and animated as he pointed out over the far end of the upper deck where he stood. 

The lone crewman within earshot sent Sylvain a tired look as he retreated to the main deck, annoyed by the noise but unable to scold the lord’s son, content to instead let the older Gautier keep watch over his sniveling brat of a younger brother.

“Dolphins!”

Sylvain heard a gruff snort and slow, thudding footsteps behind him as his brother approached, Miklan’s eyes following the line of Sylvain’s arm to a spot on the horizon. Sylvain grinned up at his brother, pleased at his discovery, hopeful for praise at his keen eyesight. 

Miklan did not look at Sylvain, choosing instead to prop his elbows on the ship’s guardrail and stare blankly out over the water. 

Shoving down his disappointment, Sylvain turned back to the spectacle that had caught his eye, raising his spyglass once more. He gazed, enraptured, at the faint sprays rising off the water, just barely visible where the mirage of sky and sea blended into one another. The sun’s light danced against the distant droplets being flipped into the air by the powerful creatures that swam just beneath the water’s surface. It was impossible to tell the true shapes of the dolphins at this range, but Sylvain was sure that he’d seen a shimmering dark blue tail rise to splash the water’s surface as the pod frolicked.

“I saw a tail! It was dark, dark blue, like the night sky, and shiny and really pretty!” Sylvain piped up again, adamantly vying for his brother’s attention.

Miklan sighed, holding his hand out for the spyglass. Sylvain quickly placed it into his palm, careful not to let it overbalance and shatter. Miklan had let one purposely slip from his grasp before, complaining later to their father about Sylvain’s incompetence, his idiocy, his clumsiness. The tongue-lashing Sylvain received about needing to take better care of his tools hadn’t been the real lesson of that day.

“Shiny tail, eh, Sylvie?” Miklan spared him a smirk and a glance as he raised the instrument. Sylvain wrinkled his nose at the nickname. He was eleven now, almost a man! But it wasn’t worth fighting Miklan about, not if he wanted to keep his spyglass intact. “Y’know, I heard there are these sea monsters with gorgeous tails, all shiny like you said. But they’re not dolphins.”

“Nuh-uh, they’re dolphins!” 

Sylvain pouted slightly. He was sure they were dolphins. Intelligent, majestic, friendly creatures, dolphins were a mystery come alive from books and sailors’ tales. He’d read only last week that two different dolphin species lived in the Great Fódlan Sea! When he had spotted the pod in the distance, Sylvain had childishly hoped they might even come closer and he would get to make friends and pet them. He’d never met a dolphin before.

Miklan turned his grin to Sylvain, full-force and sinister and bitter and all too familiar. “No, Sylvie, these aren’t dolphins. They’re horrible, nasty creatures, trying to trick men into the sea so they can eat them. They’ll rip you to pieces and eat your bones for breakfast. Wouldn’t want to catch their eyes.”

Miklan squinted into the spyglass again, focused in entirely the wrong direction. Sylvain didn’t bother to correct him, didn’t want to risk his wrath, not when his smile was that cruel and brittle. 

Miklan might have tried to scare him with stories of the monsters of the water, but Sylvain already knew some of the ones that walked on land, the ones that took human shape and dripped poison in every caustic word. The ones at sea couldn’t be any worse.

They stood, side by side, watching the water, each carefully lost in his own thoughts. Miklan held the spyglass loosely, barely bothering to peer through it as he considered the waves splashing against the side of the boat. Sylvain gazed into the horizon, where he could see the distant splashes retreat and the water calm once more. 

The spyglass clicked quietly as Miklan collapsed it, pocketing it as Sylvain bit back a complaint. It was _his_ , but Miklan wasn’t going to listen anyway. 

“Y’know Sylvie, if the monsters you saw want to eat human, we could always feed them.” 

Miklan’s tone was light, but his eyes were dark, unreadable, the way they always got before he did something that would haunt Sylvain’s nightmares for weeks and months to come. His smile, somehow even colder, chilled Sylvain to the bone.

Sylvain tensed. He never liked this part. It always, always meant that he had done something wrong, done something to anger Miklan, even when he couldn’t tell what.

Why else would his brother hate him so?

Sylvain drew in on himself, slowly backing away, tentative steps edging further from Miklan. 

“I mean, if they’re going to show themselves to you, they must want you. We should feed the sea monsters, shouldn’t we? They’re trying to lure you. Catch you.”

Sylvain’s back hit the guardrail. 

_No._

_No, please._

Miklan advanced, gaze vacant and smile disturbingly wide.

“Gotta feed the sea monsters what they want, Sylvie. And it sounds like they want you.”

Sylvain laughed nervously, heart pounding in his ears. Miklan wouldn’t do anything to hurt him, right? _Right?_ Miklan wasn’t always nice or caring, but he was Sylvain’s _brother_. Sometimes he grabbed Sylvain, shoved him, got him in trouble, but he—he helped Sylvain too, sighing as he shared snacks or offered a tired, affection ruffle of Sylvain’s hair.

Sylvain gripped onto the edge of the ship, white-knuckled.

“I mean, I probably don’t taste good! I don’t think they’d want to eat me.”

Miklan stopped, an arms-length away, and shrugged.

“Can’t know unless we try, can we Sylvie?”

Miklan grabbed Sylvain’s shirt, hauling him over the edge, Sylvain’s hands scrambling to hold on as they were forcibly pulled away, legs pedaling wildly to find safe purchase. 

“Please, please! Miklan, no—no!” Sylvain screamed, desperate, the sound swallowed by a loud crash as a wave hit the side of the ship.

Miklan’s smile turned sad and mocking. “Sorry, Sylvie. Gotta feed the monsters, or who knows if they’ll chase you to Gautier later anyway? Wouldn’t want to risk the poor townspeople. Need to keep the wretched beasties happy, you know, keep everyone safe.” 

Miklan scowled, teeth bared in a dark sneer. “It’s your duty as the next lord.”

He didn’t even shove or throw Sylvain, just quietly dropped him into the water. Miklan’s grim expression burned itself into Sylvain’s mind as he fell for what felt like an eternity, though the drop itself was small, their ship barely two stories tall. He landed with a resonant splash, saltwater flooding his nose and mouth, burning his throat. 

The seconds of sheer panic stretched into an age as Sylvain flailed wildly, unable to find his way up. His arms and legs kicked and thrashed, water churning around him as he struggled, directionless. 

Sylvain couldn’t see, couldn’t hear, couldn’t _breathe_. 

He tried to recall his swimming lessons, the boating skills his father had lectured that he needed to perfect, what to do in a man overboard situation. 

Sylvain stroked his arms, desperate to find his way, _any way_ , back to the water’s surface. His lungs were on fire, his brain sluggish from lack of oxygen. He couldn’t think, heavy saltwater clogging his passageways, his layered clothes dragging him down. There was too much pressure, too much water, too _much_.

A dull thump reverberated through his body as his foot connected with the side of the ship, an anchor to his senseless movement, grounding him back in the moment.

Sylvain knew how to swim. He _knew_. He knew how to dive, how to come back to the surface, how to survive in the water. It was just hard to remember when fighting back all the panic.

Blindly grasping in the direction he had kicked, Sylvain clawed his way along the boat to the surface, the wood a reassurance that something was real, that he wasn’t alone, adrift, lost to the sea. He righted himself, legs kicking, propelling himself to back toward the air, toward safety. First his fingers, then his face, part by part Sylvain fought his way back up to breach the open, inviting air. 

Finally, _finally_ , he broke through, his lungs gulping down grateful, heaving breaths of cool spring air, his heart pounding, spurred by the adrenaline coursing through his system.

Sylvain stared up at the ship, swimming slowly toward the deck from where he had been thrown. Miklan’s face hovered above him, an angry, pale smear ringed with the fire of his hair, set against the calm of the blue sky above him. 

“Miklan! Help me!”

The face watched Sylvain tread for a long moment before disappearing away. He swam, frantic, the ship slowly gathering speed as the wind picked up, drawing safety further and further from Sylvain’s grasp.

“Miklan! Miklan!”

Waves crashing steadily, the sea swallowed Sylvain’s voice and his cries went unacknowledged, his brother long gone. The ship’s sails were just barely visible from this angle, at the lowest levels of the vessel, as he peered skyward in an attempt to spot a friendly face. The off-white expanses of blank cloth billowed in the wind, the ship slipped away from Sylvain, the nearest railing and deck resolutely empty.

“Please… Miklan… someone…”

The beginnings of hot tears found their way to Sylvain’s eyes, cascading down his cheeks as he blinked. Fatigue sunk into his small arms and legs, energy slowly seeping away with the retreating ship. He stroked weakly, a last-ditch attempt to try to keep up with the ship in the hopes that someone might spot him, but he was tiring fast, the will drained out of him by his brother’s rejection.

Sylvain’s arms were so heavy. His legs, too. Everything felt wooden and weighed down, his clothes chains of cotton and wool, slowly dragging him back down to the sea’s floor. 

He had to keep swimming. Miklan wouldn’t just leave him out here. He just — he was trying to impart some kind of lesson to Sylvain, right? He could be better, would be better, and his brother would save him. He knew his brother resented him, Miklan’s place as heir passed over when Sylvain was only eight years old, the elder’s trouble-making and difficulty with numbers a cause for disgust with their father. 

Sylvain hadn’t asked for it.

He hadn’t asked for _this_ either; hadn’t asked to be left, wet and alone, lost at sea, tossed there by the person who was supposed to care for him, protect him.

Still, Sylvain had to keep swimming. Even if Miklan blamed him, punished him. Even if Miklan was right about the dolphins being sea monsters. Even if Miklan deserved to be the next Lord Gautier so much more than he did. 

Minutes ticked by, the ship receding into the horizon, as Sylvain kicked and swam, abandoned and lost without any idea how to find his way to shore. The chill of the water, still cold from winter turning to spring, had long sunk into his bones, and he desperately occupied his mind with thoughts of anything else. 

Anything but the cold, cold, cold water burying itself in his soul.

Anything to distract him from the frigid, endless depths that awaited him.

Anything.

Sylvain imagined dolphins, fins glistening and far away, their chirps quizzical and curious. 

He thought of warm blankets, ready to swaddle him once he made it back to the docks. 

He wished for his favorite pastries, snuck to him by the Gautier household’s kindly head cook. 

He remembered the books he’d read, their fantastical stories of the far-off lands of Almyra, Brigid, and Dagda, and the much more mundane reports of their neighbors in Leicester and Sreng. 

He dreamt of magical creatures, big and small, visible only to the imagination, kindly and enchanting, nothing like the monsters that lurked in Miklan’s mind. 

He mused on Adrestia’s capital, Enbarr, white and beautiful, only a two days’ ride down the road, a golden city he longed to visit again.

He wept for memories of his brother, patting him on the head, telling him he did a good job, offering to teach him how to swing a sword, string a bow, read a book. Miklan, his brother. Miklan, his tormentor. 

Sylvain missed the Miklan from before their father had decided Sylvain was the more intelligent son, the more worthy heir; he had lost the Miklan who had once—well, not quite _adored_ , but had certainly _cared_ for Sylvain as his precious younger brother, had never yet actively tried to hurt him.

Sylvain had to keep swimming. 

The longer he stayed conscious, stayed above the surface, the more likely someone, _anyone_ would come back for him. 

Sylvain forced his arms to move, his legs to kick, even as the weariness shut him down one limb at a time. 

Stroke. Kick.

Stroke.

Sylvain was _so tired_.

Stroke.

Stroke.

 _Move_ , leg!

Kick.

Was Miklan going to come back yet?

Stroke.

He couldn’t—he _had_ to keep going. But everything was so heavy.

Stroke.

Sylvain felt himself sink slowly, even as he focused his energy into his legs. 

Kick.

His head dipped below the surface, and he feebly paddled his arms.

Stroke.

He was so, _so_ tired. He— 

* * *

Everything felt heavy. Sylvain’s arms, his legs, his head—everything ached. 

Was he dead? Had he, at the tender age of eleven, found his way to the final ever after?

Though, if this was the afterlife, it sucked. Sylvain didn’t particularly fancy spending eternity with aches and pains, and whatever surface he’d been transported to was sandy and uncomfortable. While Sylvain was hard-pressed to believe that he could really be accepted into heaven, whatever form it took, he’d never heard or read anything about hell being _sandy_.

Goddess, it was making his butt itch.

Sylvain blearily cracked his eyes open, the late afternoon sun’s oblique light reflecting sharply off the water, a scattering of rays directed at his face in a particularly unfortunate angle. He blinked, squinting to adjust to the brightness, his hand pushing away his hair when it had dried, matted to his forehead. A shadowed figure swam into view above him.

He must be seeing things.

He blinked again.

Nope, it was still there. And way too close.

A boy’s face peered over his own, his complexion pale and otherworldly, almost translucent with blue veins peaking through. His tiny nose was scrunched in distaste and slightly reddened, as though he had been crying recently. Eyes of hooded gold stared into Sylvain’s own, curious and intelligent, unreadably scrutinizing. His dark hair glistened slightly where it stuck to his face in places, clearly wet, possibly ocean-damp like Sylvain’s own. Even within his limited range of vision, Sylvain could spot the one bared ear, medium-length hair shoved unceremoniously behind it, the cartilage strangely shaped and pointy, almost fin-like.

And while he couldn’t quite look down with the other boy’s face so close to his own, he could feel two large patches of pressure against his chest where the boy had rested his hands to lean over Sylvain. That explained some of the weight.

His unfortunate dip in the sea probably explained the rest of his aches. Well, at least he wasn’t dead, though whether that was a blessing or a curse remained to be seen.

Sylvain grinned uneasily up at the boy. “Uh. Can I help you?”

The boy tilted his head quizzically before letting out a string of clicks and chirps, his tone rude and chiding. One hand lifted from his chest, the other digging in further, to poke Sylvain’s cheek, promptly followed another string of aggravated chirping noises.

Huh. Weird. Sylvain wasn’t sure if it was supposed to be language.

He pushed himself up by his elbows, the other boy falling back and pouting slightly as he rose, still offering a few offended, unintelligible noises. 

As the young boy retreated, Sylvain could see that, well… he wasn’t a boy at all. At least, not a human one. 

Where hips and legs should have been, the boy’s body melted into a single tail covered in inky, dark scales. The individual scales were almost indistinguishable, even from where Sylvain sat next to the other boy; they were arranged, tiny and so impossibly blue as to appear black, into a mesmerizing, iridescent quilt, the tail itself tapering into a single, splendid fin, fanned out and lazily swatting the sand beneath them. The scales reflected flashes of brilliant, bright tones where the day’s last lights danced against them, reminiscent of stars against the midnight sky. 

As Sylvain’s gaze glanced up and down across the other boy’s body, his eyes flitted between a number of other oddities.

Though his tail was striking and bold in color, the scales that dotted his skin were a softer blue, barely visible against the boy’s skin. The ear Sylvain had spotted before was not just vaguely fin-like, but in fact tapered into an actual fin, first pale then merging into dark blue that fanned out in the coloration of his tail. His hands, though still small and childish, had fingers that were long and spindly, held together by translucent webbing, the greens and blues of the boy’s veins especially prominent in those gossamer stretches of skin. Above the boy’s right hip was a mark the size of Sylvain’s palm, black as through inked into his skin, its shape an unknown rune.

Finally Sylvain’s eyes landed just below the boy’s slightly-pouting and confused face. Across the boy’s neck lay six wide slashes of an indeterminate source, three on each side of his neck, protruding from his skin in ridges almost like old, raised scars, fluttering open and closed in time with the other boy’s breathing. Were they… were they _his lungs_? Or, if he was half-fish, were they maybe… gills? It was a strange thought, that someone so almost-human could have gills, but the evidence was baldly and irrefutably on display.

Sylvain gawked for a long moment, entranced by the strange boy-creature in front of him, his probably-gills, and his magnificent tail, only blinking him out of his stupor when the other boy hit him against his abdomen with a small fist, chattering wildly as he did so, his cheeks furiously pink with embarrassment. 

Right. Staring was rude.

Sylvain scratched his cheek sheepishly, pushing against his left hand to bring himself into a fully seated position, his legs slowly drawing in to meet his chest. He quickly glanced away to break the tension of the moment.

Without the other kid’s eerie, porcelain face in his, he could take better stock of his surroundings. Wherever this place was that he had washed up or been dragged to, it was unfamiliar. Immediately around him was a small, secluded beach, slightly rocky, but with sand that had worn mostly smooth with the daily rise and fall of the tides. Sylvain’s back was immensely thankful that there were no sharp shards of rock or shell lying below him to increase the sources of pain assaulting his body. As Sylvain turned to peer over his right shoulder, he could see the tree line where it stood maybe forty paces away from where he sat by the waterfront. 

He had no idea where he was. The beach, while serene, was alien, and a sharp surge of panic that he had been washed ashore in a foreign land shot through him. 

Sylvain bit down on his lip and dug the nails of his left hand into his palm, grounding his terror with the pain.

Breathe in, breathe out.

He could not have gone far, and whether he had been dragged onto this beach by fortune against the wills of fate, he most likely would not be far from home. The ship had only been half a day from port, after all. 

Breathe in, breathe out.

And Sylvain had been taught how to navigate by the stars. He could find his way north of here, the most likely direction to return home.

Breathe in, breathe out.

He could find his way back after night had fallen. It wouldn’t be long now anyway.

Passably calmed, he turned back to the other boy’s still-pinched face, reddened and ripe to explode with another outburst of angry clicks, evidently still incensed by Sylvain’s blunt, wide-eyed gaze.

“Sorry, sorry! I didn’t mean to stare! I know that staring is bad, Mother tells me not to do it all the time. It’s just — I’ve never seen someone with a tail before? Or… uh, gills? Or — or ears like yours! And — and you have really pretty hair and eyes…”

At the sound of Sylvain’s voice, the other boy blanched. Clearly he hadn’t expected Sylvain to speak up again. They’d both been far too focused on Sylvain’s staring.

He chirped at Sylvain cautiously, brows furrowed in confusion.

Sylvain felt a slight, sinking disappointment in the pit of his stomach. It was irrational. Of course the other boy couldn’t understand him. He had already expected that. 

Sylvain bit his lip. If he tried, he could probably mime something comprehensible. He pointed insistently at the boy’s tail, then to his own legs, stretching them as he did so. 

“Your tail? I’ve never seen one before. I mean, I _have_ , just not a person with one. All the people I know have legs, like me.”

The other boy followed his gestures, seeming to nod along with the meaning, scooting closer to examine Sylvain’s body. The boy’s hand moved to feel along Sylvain’s leg, the pressure a little too firm in places, pausing at Sylvain’s knee to knock against it with a tight fist. Sylvain’s leg reflexively drew in, bumping roughly against the other boy’s tail as it did so.

Sylvain gave a slight yelp at the unexpected impact, quickly flattening his leg back into its resting position once the reflex relinquished control. 

The other boy gave a delighted chatter, almost a giggle, his former irritation and animosity toward Sylvain apparently forgotten in his amusement at the human body. While Sylvain couldn’t say he was thrilled at the development (the other boy had a _firm_ grip and Sylvain suspected he might find bruises speckled along his leg tomorrow), he supposed it was an improvement over being angrily yelled at in nonsensical clicking noises. 

The other boy continued poking and prodding around the joint, clearly fascinated by its movement as he pushed and pulled against Sylvain’s calf, giddy at the way it formed an inflexible hinge, unable to rotate beyond a certain point.

Sylvain winced. His knee wasn’t supposed to bend backwards, but there was no way to explain that the other boy as he pulled up on Sylvain’s leg, pressing against the kneecap to hold the joint in place against the sand.

“It’s not a toy,” he complained, pouting. “It’s just my knee.” 

Satisfied after a long moment of resistance from Sylvain’s leg, the other boy dropped his hands, wiggling his tail as he did so. He enthusiastically grabbed Sylvain’s right hand to place it where his own knees likely would have been were he human; the scales were cool against Sylvain’s skin, with ridges so flat as to be barely noticeable.

The tail did certainly seem to be much more flexible than Sylvain’s knee, twisting back and forth against the sand in small, wave-like patterns. Wherever this boy had come from, his body was strange and fascinating, like that of a creature out of a storybook; he was ethereally beautiful, his skin pale as though it never saw sunlight, his tail bewitching, shimmering starlight, and his eyes molten coppery pools of light, complemented by the sun’s dying rays. Sylvain was almost envious of his beauty.

Sylvain smiled softly as he gently massaged his slightly abused joint in his spare hand. “Yeah. I can tell. Your tail is really pretty! It’s amazing.”

The boy clicked a vague noise of agreement before busying himself with more poking and prodding. Examining Sylvain’s other strange qualities, he guessed. It probably wasn’t every day that the boy saw a human — Sylvain had certainly never met or even heard of someone like _him_ before. 

The boy picked at Sylvain’s hand, pulling it away from where it had still lain against the tail. He clutched tight to Sylvain’s wrist as he compared Sylvain’s hand to his own. He was so pale next to Sylvain, his skin so white it was almost ghost-like, as though he might disappear into the wind, nothing more than a conjured friend of Sylvain’s imagination. His hand, like his tail, was cool to the touch, like running his fingers along a smooth stone that had been plucked from a quiet riverbed shadowed away from the sun’s warmth. 

The boy was so strange, so clearly different from anyone Sylvain had met.

Where had he come from, actually? 

The more Sylvain pondered the boy’s origins, the more confused he became. The boy was half-fish, give or take a few scales. So did he live in the sea? But Sylvain had never heard of a half-man fish before, not in the history books and old literature his parents placed in his hands after every meal, not in the fairy tales his father scoffed at as being immature and childish, not even in old wives’ tales threatened and murmured by their cooks and maids as they chided him for his boisterousness.

And if he did live in the sea, Sylvain wondered, had he ever seen a dolphin? He must have. Disappointment slid down Sylvain’s spine as he remembered the unfortunate trip that had landed him on this beach; the fact that he hadn’t met the dolphin pod that he had spotted from the ship still rankled, among other moments of the day he was carefully avoiding acknowledging.

But. Dolphins. 

Maybe the boy was friends with a dolphin and could introduce Sylvain. Maybe he even had a _pet_ dolphin. But maybe dolphins were more like horses, used more for their utility than for their friendship. Maybe—

The boy yanked on Sylvain’s right ear, apparently examining another human oddity, drawing Sylvain from his tangent with a single, sharp tug, letting out an almost-blistering, loud, curious trill as he pulled.

Sylvain yelped. “Not so hard!”

The other boy let go, expression bashful as he patted the side of Sylvain’s head consolingly, his hand making a light slapping noises against Sylvain’s head.

 _There, there_. The quietly concerned condolences clamored around Sylvain’s head, echoing sarcastic taunts of previous pains. This boy meant them, at least. Probably. 

“It’s okay! I’m fine! Just, uh, be careful?”

Soothed by Sylvain’s acquiescence, the boy resumed his examinations, thankfully more tentatively than before.

Despite his small stature, the other boy was surprisingly strong. There was quite a lot of power packed into his child-sized body—a body that looked to be even younger than Sylvain’s. Had he dragged Sylvain onto this beach from where he had been thrown from the ship? 

Had he been the one to pull Sylvain from the sea? If he had, Sylvain owed him quite a lot. A Gautier must always keep his debts in balance, after all. 

He knew the other boy wouldn’t understand him, but—

“Did you save me?”

The other boy blinked blankly at Sylvain. His hand hovered somewhere around the buttons of Sylvain’s cuff. 

Of course. Right. There was probably some way to mime dragging a body out of the ocean.

Before he could articulate the thought, a loud whistle cut across the water and into his thoughts, the boy beside him perking up at the sound. 

A thin, stern face framed in dark hair hovered in the water, glaring at the two of them where they sat. This new—well, not _person_ , because Sylvain was pretty sure neither were human, but he wasn’t sure if there was a polite and correct way to refer to them—half-fish man bore a strong resemblance to the boy seated beside him, from their messy, midnight-blue hair and sallow skin to their thin noses and sharp eyebrows. Siblings, maybe?

The boy eagerly greeted the other fish-person, clicking and chirping animatedly as he pulled himself to the edge of the water, the sea accepting him easily as he fell into its gentle waves, as though welcoming him home. 

Well, Sylvain supposed, that answered the question about whether he lived in the sea. 

The boy gestured at Sylvain as he chattered happily to his… brother? friend? Someone. As the older fish-person’s eyes landed on him again (deep, striking blue, like the ocean on a clear day, so very _unlike_ the younger boy’s bright coppery tones), Sylvain waved awkwardly. The glare on the elder boy’s face did not abate, and Sylvain felt himself wilt under the intensity of the scrutiny. He wasn’t sure what he had done wrong, but angry elder brothers was something Sylvain knew far too well.

The elder brother tutted, rolling his eyes in disdain, as he reached to haul the younger back toward open water, his tone sharp and scolding as he chastised in irritated clicks. Sylvain froze, tension crawling through his limbs as he watched the exchange, uneasy foreboding filling him with dread. 

The younger retorted something and the elder laughed, ruffling his hair amicably, and the stiff wariness of Sylvain’s body eased.

The younger threw Sylvain a grin and a quick wave just before they disappeared into the water. He hoped this brother was like the old Miklan, kind and protective despite his gruff attitude, and not the current one.

Sylvain sat, watching the swell and ebb of the waves, idly drawing senseless patterns in the sand with his fingers, for what felt like a long time after, letting the sun set in front of him almost to completion. He still had no idea where he was or how to get home. Hopefully it wasn’t too far. He’d try to find his way once the stars had risen.

The day had certainly had its ups and downs, but he’d like to think he made a new friend. He hoped he’d see him again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One quick point of clarification: "ridges almost like old, raised scars" refers to keloids (not linking anything to avoid squicking anyone out).
> 
> You can retweet this chapter [here](https://twitter.com/euphemeas/status/1205329636718194688)! Or just come yell at me about mer-boy Felix, idk, [@euphemeas](https://twitter.com/euphemeas).
> 
> This fic now has [fan](https://twitter.com/punchyfakegamer/status/1214388538827038721) [art](https://twitter.com/slaaneshiisa/status/1215855733624971264)! I'm so happy and so thrilled that people are enjoying this fic, I really cannot thank everyone enough for their support.


	2. town of gautier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _It’s okay to feel a little trapped_ , she had written. 
> 
> Before Mercie’s kind ear, Sylvain might have denied that he’d ever felt imprisoned. After all, he’d never needed for anything. Especially in the years since Miklan’s “departure”.
> 
> Now, though, he just stared at invisible bars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for how long it took me to update, I really hope to get the following chapters out faster (though, the next one is expected to be pretty long, so I can't make promises, sorry).
> 
> Thanks once again to [Cha](https://archiveofourown.org/users/akhikosanada) and [Elliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scatteringmyashes) in helping me work through this chapter! It went through a lot of revisions and their help was invaluable.
> 
> Warnings:
> 
>   * Sylvain's (and his family's) views on gender and women are _not_ a reflection of the author's and are something he needs to actively work on.
>   * There's a depiction of a panic attack and near-drowning towards the end of the chapter. Please take care if this could be triggering to you. (see end notes for exact lines to skip)
> 


Sylvain moaned appreciatively into the girl’s mouth. 

The kiss was a little too wet, her tongue a little too insistent, the new maid’s hands surprisingly forward and eager as they groped roughly against him. But kissing was rarely ever bad, and this girl was decent enough at it. If nothing else, she was enthusiastic, and he could get behind that. Literally, if the occasion arose. Which it often did—Sylvain was categorically good at sex and proud of it. He was always happy to help out those in need of an outlet for their energy.

He trailed one hand down, reaching to grab the girl’s ass, his mouth moving to kiss along her jawline. He squeezed, appreciating the gasp she made and the way her tits pressed against him as she keened. The other hand trailed further, slowly rucking up her skirt. 

She pulled back to reach blindly behind her, aiming for the laces of her dress. Sylvain growled appreciatively as he chased her lips. “Baby, don’t tease!” 

Her laugh was tinkling, clear, like chimes in a warm summer breeze. It wasn’t quite right, though, didn’t sound wholly honest, faked and tinged with greed, and—

Sylvain shoved the thought down. He had more important things to work on.

He pulled her skirt higher, and his hand found the fabric of her stockings. All these damned layers were going to be the end of him.

“Help me!” she whined, her small hand lacing with his as she guided it back up to where she was struggling to pull properly against the knot behind her. Sylvain obliged, sighing appreciatively as the fabric fell down in rough waves to her waist, letting him take in the expanses of her lovely, sun-worn skin.

He reached down again, hoisting the girl and leaning her against the wall as he breathed heavily against her neck, tongue darting out to taste her.

A loud crash echoed behind him, and Sylvain dropped the girl in surprise. She squeaked as she fell, landing in a heap at his feet, arms struggling to cover herself from their company. 

Sylvain turned slowly, grin sheepish and hands raised. At least he hadn’t lost any of his clothing this time. He’d been found with his pants down a frankly embarrassing number of times, not that he actually had the shame to care. 

“Out! Out! Get out, Master Sylvain! There will be no cavorting in my kitchen!”

Sylvain backed out, laughing brightly and bowing all the while.

He could hear the head cook berating the girl behind him, the poor new maid’s sniffles echoing their way through Gautier Manor. Apparently she hadn’t even managed to last a week. It was a shame, he would have liked her to stay around. She really did have some of the best breasts he’d seen in a while.

And, well, he should get back to his room to take care of some _inconvenient_ business that was currently making it slightly difficult for him to walk.

* * *

The sun beat through the window, an unnecessarily cheerful reminder that spring was in full bloom. The birds, the bees, and every last flowering thing outside were fully relaxed and content, basking in the sun’s glow. Good for them, Sylvain supposed.

It was a stark contrast to the gloom of Gautier House, but that wasn’t new.

His quill rolled unsteadily on the table where he’d thrown it. One hand lazily wafted back and forth as the other reached for the pounce. He gave the small container a rough shake, letting the coarse granules fall carelessly over the page. He’d send off his reply once the ink dried.

It wasn’t that Mercedes was wrong (she never was, and her letters were always a delight). No, she was right. She was always too right.

 _It’s okay to feel a little trapped_ , she had written. 

Before Mercie’s kind ear, Sylvain might have denied that he’d ever felt imprisoned. After all, he’d never needed for anything. Especially in the years since Miklan’s “departure”.

Now, though, he just stared at invisible bars.

As it was, “a little trapped” might have been putting it lightly. There wasn’t a key to his gilded cage. There wasn’t even a door. Eventually, some girl would be dropped in here with him, and they’d be left to rot, watching over the town to the end of their unhappy days together. A wonderful, beautiful life he couldn’t wait to see fulfilled.

At twenty-two going on twenty-three, Sylvain had already scared off at least two dozen girls from various noble families. Each one had been daintily dangled in front of him, looking and smelling like pristine summer peaches. And who was he to say no to such lovely fruit?

The expectations were clear: “woo her, even marry her, but first make sure her dowry is real”. 

He’d complied, as much as dates were possible in a small, bland port town. Flowers, wine, tea, dinner—the whole works, capped off by a careful refusal to remember names. Having “Emily” called “Greta”, “Maria”, or “Patricia” over and over eventually sent them packing, one way or another. 

They all just wanted some kindly, white-knight lordling husband who would wait on them hand and foot. None of them had wanted _Sylvain_ —none of them had wanted to know him at all, stars in their eyes as they waited for him to want to get to know _them_. To tell them about a future together as a fairytale Lord and Lady pair looking out over the same damn port every day for the rest of their days.

His family might have been wealthy, their town one of the richer ports in Adrestia, but Sylvain had neither real power nor true love to offer these girls, and they could take their whirlwind romance and go, thank you very much. 

Those innocent, naive, noble girls were good fun for the days that they stayed. They had sweet laughs and cute smiles, dolled up in their family’s best. There was pretty, ornately-coiffed hair abound. A few even had truly fantastic breasts, absolutely worth a squeeze or two. No disrespect to the others who stuffed, of course. All tits were good.

But, goddess above, how they whined when he refused to stop kissing the hands and cheeks of all the lovely, young maidens about town. They cried and cried, so delicate, so easily upset, screaming for their shattered dreams of the perfect partner, refusing to let Sylvain share all the love he had to give.

They should have just learned to take things a little less personally.

As for what Sylvain got out of it? It was always a fun game to play with himself to guess how many days or wrong names it would take for a girl to quit. And, besides, some of the more capricious ones were even decent in bed. If he couldn’t escape from behind glass walls, he could at least indulge in the best of what this beautifully-ornamented jail had to offer him.

It wasn’t as though he had no loyalty to the town of Gautier. Sylvain was _of_ it, and his duty was to help it prosper. He knew that. He had been bred for Gautier, raised for it, every day trained for it. 

Like any prize stallion worth his weight would be.

A part of him longed to run away across the sea and never look back. That was the dream, an all-too-fanciful one—the hope in it cut so sharply that it felt more like a nightmare. It was ludicrously laughable, and Sylvain was the butt of the joke. He wouldn’t last the journey. Being too far out over the water sickened Sylvain. Nauseated him. Murky, turbulent depths always ( _always_ ) threatened to drag him down, and standing too long on a deck left him heaving and shaken. This time, the harsh, salty wind promised, there wouldn’t be any kindly water spirit to save him.

Sylvain had wondered, just once or twice, if it would be better to meet his fate at the water’s hand.

He knew there was no reason to dwell on escape, no matter how idyllic it might seem. He had one reality and he had no choice but to make the best of it.

In his last letter, he’d written Mercie of his misadventures in courtship. Her reply had been nothing short of resigned and disappointed, her frustration hidden behind kind and gentle words. _I know you can be better than this_ and _You have to forgive these women and yourself_ were lovely sentiments, but Sylvain maintained that there wasn’t anything _to_ forgive. 

Perhaps he’d been a little mean-spirited, maybe a little insensitive with the name thing, but it was all part of the game. To see who could take more—derive more pleasure, have more fun, lean a little closer to the flame—sinking in their claws before the other party gasped in pain and cried uncle.

Sylvain loved strategy games, and he always played to win. And after years of perfecting the ways to smile, to charm, to flirt? He was an expert at this one. 

He skimmed the letter in front of him, its black-on-off-white color mildly mocking, too reminiscent of his monochromatic existence. His signature stood out—a gaudy, trained flourish that was nothing more than the empty ideal those air-headed, shallow women thought they could love. 

_Dearest Mercedes,_

_I’m sure you’re beautiful today, too, just like every day! (I know it’s old hat at this point, but imagine me winking.) Give Annie a hug from me?_

_It’s been too long since I got to see you. Since I can’t go to the capital anytime soon, come to Gautier instead? No need to bring anything but your gorgeous smile. I’m more than happy to send along gold and a carriage to bring you here. And Annie, if she’d like to come along._

_There’s no easy way to say it, and I’m not any good at apologies, but I’m sorry that my last letter upset you. I’ll send for some of the nice, fancy flour and sugar to make it up to you? (I am bowing for your grace and forgiveness. I’m at your mercy, Mercie!)_

_I’ve been trying again to solve the mystery of that story I told you about. That I keep telling you about? The one with the half-fish boy who saved me. I haven’t found anything new, unfortunately, though it’s not surprising considering I’ve been using the same books for years now. I have to keep my head up and keep looking though!_

_Eleven years later, it still feels weird to refer to them as “half-fish”. I’ve said before that I’ve seen them called “mermaids” in one or two books, but they’re definitely not all girls, so the word doesn’t really feel right. Though, I wouldn’t say no to seeing a lovely female fish-person._

_Come to think of it, do they have girls? They probably have girls. I hope they have girls. Magical sea beings or not, they have to make babies somehow, right?_

_I’m sure the drawings don’t do their looks justice._

_Anyhow. “Merpeople”, perhaps? It’s a bit of a mouthful, but probably more accurate and more inclusive. I’ve always wondered how they refer to themselves._

_I’ll see if I can find those merchants with the funny, fantastical stories again. Maybe they’ll have some new sightings to tell me about. If not, they’ll probably at least have something interesting to say about Sreng, Leicester, or Almyra. I wish I could visit those lands, but you know me. Sturdy, landlubber Sylvain, not to be trusted on a boat!_

_That’s about all I’ve got right now._

_As always, my best wishes to you and Annette! Please tell Annie that I’d like to apologize again for my parents’ rudeness when we met. She was absolutely charming and refreshingly intelligent. Having tea with her was some of the best company I’ve had in a long time (yourself excluded of course), and I would love to hear more about her studies into magical theory. Perhaps she could even teach me a spell or two?_

_One more thing: if you see Ashe around Enbarr, tell him I say hello. I got his last letter and I promise I’ll be writing to him soon. Pass along my well wishes for his siblings’ health, please?_

_Your friend who is only a two days’ ride away,_

_Sylvain Jose Gautier_

Not his finest work, but that all sounded about right. Life in Gautier had been spectacularly boring lately. At least he could take pleasure in the reprieve from dates spent pretending he and the noble girl he’d been placed with weren’t just bartering chips for parental ambitions. 

It left him to his own devices, free him to do what he wished.

Whatever people expected of him, whatever they said of him, “what Syvain wished” wasn’t only the seduction of the nearest warm body. He never said no to a good romp through the linens, but sex wasn’t the end all and be all of his existence. Sex was good, and sex could be _great_ , but it usually left him feeling unfulfilled and hollow in a way he didn’t like to dwell on.

No, in the years since childhood, what Sylvain had always wanted most was to find his savior from that day so long ago at the beach. _Their_ beach, as he knew it in his mind.

He wrote of his research, but he knew Mercedes had never believed his stories. The memory was fantastical and long-forgotten, heavily bedecked with the whimsical embellishments of a child’s mind, twisting and winding over itself until Sylvain no longer knew what was fact and what was fairy tale. The beach itself was real—the path Sylvain tread to it worn down after years of blind hope—but every time he found his way there, it stood resolutely empty. 

In the most hopeless moments, Sylvain too thought the memory a fabrication of his younger mind. Those days, he scratched out letter after letter, addressed to a nameless, ephemeral illusion speaking at him in quizzical chirping tones he couldn’t understand. When the despair broke, feverish words on paper became ash among the hearth’s coals.

Even when he wanted to give up hope, Sylvain looked. And looked, and looked, and looked. Even if it was fruitless, even if it was a waste of time and resources, even if he found nothing but pity and derisive laughter, it was his choice to search—one of very few afforded to him. 

He never regretted trying to find the boy with a blue fish’s tail. To prove, just to himself, that he was real.

Mercedes always humored him, listening faithfully to his endless and forever-changing retellings of that day. She was more than he deserved, steadfast and stern by turns, never wavering from when they met six years ago in Enbarr. Sylvain had wound up in her care after an unfortunate run-in with a pile of bricks located beneath an open window. She hadn’t asked a second time when he’d refused to say how he’d been injured, only healed his wounds and wrapped in him a warm embrace as he pretended his eyes were just sweating.

He shook himself and laughed, letting the easy, practiced smile fall across his lips for the imagined audience in his bedroom. No use getting caught up in bygones. 

Sylvain ran his thumb across the paper, humming a small noise of satisfaction as his hand came away clean. A shake and two creases later, the page stood ready to be sealed and addressed. He yanked back his hand when the flame jumped, scorching him, and he nearly lost his grip on the sealing wax.

A quick, vindictive puff of breath extinguished the candle, unneeded in the unrelenting daylight.

Letter finally ready to be taken away with the rest of the manor’s correspondence, Sylvain stretched and stood, his joints crackling. 

He pointedly ignored the paperwork placed before him, the haphazard stacks of records he was supposed to review before the end of the day. He’d avoided them all week, but any longer and a few shipments would have unbalanced ledgers. Merchants didn’t take kindly to bookkeeping not in their favor. 

Sylvain didn’t particularly feel like dealing with numbers, not when the weather was so pleasant. Not when there were plenty of pretty faces he could spend his day with instead.

He’d bring the papers downstairs for his father’s officers to take care of. They got paid to do this work, they could do to earn it. He was confident in his ability to charm them for help, not that they ever said no to a request from the lord’s son. 

Maybe he’d beg a snack from the kitchens and take a walk to town. He could spend the afternoon annoying the gardeners and hanging out under the lilac bushes. It was, after all, fantastic weather outside—it was a day meant for enjoying life before it passed him by.

* * *

Sylvain slid into his seat at the table, newly changed from grass-stained pants and his hair fluffed to perfection. His father glared at him, chewing tersely over his bite of roast beef.

So he’d fallen asleep in the garden for a little longer than he’d meant to. And then dawdled a bit cleaning up. And maybe chatted up one of the new maids on his way down. So what?

“How nice of you to join us, Sylvain,” said Constantine Gautier, tone acerbic, lips barely moving to form the words.

“Yeah! What’s for dinner? I’m starving.”

“Funny, that, boy. Tell me, did you work up an appetite loitering in the gardens?”

Sylvain shrugged, smiling easily. “Something like that.” He cut into his own slice of meat. The first piece was a bit cold. He frowned.

Constantine continued to stare accusingly, slowly bringing up one forkful after another. 

Sylvain ignored him.

“Oh, let Sylvie enjoy himself. He’s only young once,” Emmeline said, gripping Sylvain’s arm affectionately. Her nails dug in, a little painful.

Sylvain flashed her an insincere smile. “Thank you, Mother.”

She preened and patted his hand. “How was your day, dearie?”

“Oh you know. Wrote some letters, took a walk through town.”

Constantine took another bite. “Arthur told me you dropped off the records for the ships you were meant to keep track of this afternoon.”

Another shrug. “Yeah, no big deal. Someone has to do them.”

“That ‘someone’ is you, Sylvain José Gautier.”

Sylvain cut another chunk of meat. 

“You are not to shirk your duties for whatever reason, for whatever insipid _women_ you wish to play around with! I will not have a layabout for an heir!”

Sylvain raised his hands placatingly, laughing sheepishly. “Whoa, whoa! No need to freak out. No women today.”

“Nor tomorrow, nor the day after, I should hope! Don’t think I don’t hear about your gallivanting about town, tramping about with common women!” Constantine’s eyes were nearly bulging out of his head. “If I see any bastards—!”

“Hey, I’m doing my best! Can’t make any promises, though, dearest Father.” Sylvain cut in, meeting his father’s eye. His smile stretched taut and fake, more grimace than grin.

“You rude, ungrateful—!”

“Constantine, please!” Emmeline cut in, shushing him with meaningful glance to the serving boy hidden in the shadows of the hall. 

Typical of his mother, to be more concerned with appearances than content.

Constantine’s chest heaved. 

In. Out. 

In. Out. 

He didn’t seem to calm any, only puffed up further like a rooster preparing to make the morning’s first crowing. Sylvain didn’t especially mind. His father looked even more absurd than usual.

“You _will_ practice your duty. Or—”

Sylvain rolled his eyes. “Or what? Gonna disown me like Miklan?” Sylvain snorted. “As if. You couldn’t bear the scandal of your only remaining son leaving.”

He stabbed another cut of meat.

“That may be so, but you cannot slack off if you wish to be a successful lord!” Constantine hissed, fist loudly hitting table. 

“Oh, like you? Sitting around reading goddess-knows-what, counting the amount of gold we have over and over like a miser, while your son and court officers do all your work for you?”

“I am _training_ you to take over this role!”

Sylvain threw him a dubious look. “Is that what you call it? Like you trained Miklan?”

“Your brother had no promise! We invested in you because he had no head for leadership!”

“Oh yeah, that did _so_ much good. How many times did he try to get the title back again? The count was at seventeen when you disowned him, right?”

“Sylvie!” Emmeline cried. “Don’t talk about that. Why must you bring up painful memories!” She took a breath, fanning herself theatrically. “We should all just calm down and enjoy dinner.”

Sylvain resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

“Oh, it’s so painful to talk about all the times Miklan tried to get rid of me and you did nothing to stop it. How dare I bring up memories that hurt you so.”

“Do not talk to your mother that way!”

“Why? Am I wrong? I mean, I’m glad he’s gone. I’m kinda partial to having all my limbs. But at least I’m not trying to sweep his existence under the rug.”

“That’s not true! Sylvie, you know that’s not true.” Emmeline sniffled loudly, dramatically, without a hint of irony. “Miklan’s… _departure_ was a very hard time for all of us. It was a challenging decision, but we had to do it, even if it broke our hearts.”

Like you hadn’t been trying to get rid of him for years, Sylvain thought. He bit his tongue. 

“We let Miklan go for your good,” Constantine said sternly. Sylvain was fairly certain he recalled a quiet, less-than-somber toast on the night of Miklan’s departure, but sure.

“Oh yeah. All for me. Lucky me.”

“Don’t you try to be smart with me, boy!” Constantine chewed noisily, lips smacking inelegantly around his dinner. For all that he tried to instill propriety into Sylvain, he never seemed to observe it himself. “I swear, the sooner we can find you a wife, the better it will be for all of us.”

“Better for you, you mean,” Sylvain muttered. 

“Oh yes! Sylvie, you must marry.” Emmeline nodded. Sylvain couldn’t tell if she’d heard him and was simply choosing to ignore him. “A good wife will help bring out a gentler side to you.” 

Sylvain audibly grimaced. Not this again.

“Oh, all those poor girls you’ve turned away.” She clucked her tongue sympathetically.

A thought struck her and she flapped her hand imperiously. “That one girl! Natalie, wasn’t it? She was so well-spoken and docile. And you were so boorish to her!”

Constantine grunted his agreement. Sylvain attempted to recall a face, failing miserably. 

“And Clarisse… Oh, I would have liked her as a daughter-in-law.”

He still had no clue who she was talking about. He tuned her out, focusing instead on progressing through the half-eaten slab of beef in front of him.

“And Rachel. She was so pretty! Her skin might have been almost as fine as mine was at that age!” Emmeline sighed. “Though there were a couple of girls who weren’t so good… That last one, what was her name? Andrea? Antine?”

“Annette.” Sylvain cleared his throat. “Her name’s Annette.”

“Oh yes, her. So clumsy and silly, going on and on about becoming a warlock or some nonsense. The place of a woman is by her husband’s side, caring for the family!” Emmeline tutted. “What a ridiculous girl.”

Bile rose in Sylvain’s throat, righteous outrage bubbling at the slander.

“We never should have taken that invitation from that uncle of hers. So dotty and desperate. We took pity on them because of their family’s circumstances, but good breeding—”

“I don’t know,” Sylvain cut in, voice quiet and steady. “I like Annette. She’s very clever and earnest.”

Emmeline blinked in shock, spluttering at Sylvain’s interruption to her diatribe. “ _Her_? But she’s so… so—! So unrefined! So absurd! You can do a lot better than that, you know.”

Constantine paused, another bite poised. “Your mother’s right. You must marry the right girl.” He waved his fork at Sylvain.

Sylvain resisted the urge to arch an eyebrow. “You mean the richest girl?”

“No! Sylvie, of course not.” The pout plying his mother’s lips was laughably fake. “We want you to be happy! We want the best for you. We’ll do _anything_ for you, you’re our son. Our heir! We—well, if you _insist_ on this Clarette girl—”

“ _Annette_ , Mother. And I’m not trying to marry her.” He cut into his dinner unsteadily, his hand trembling with quiet fury, holding back an aggravated breath once again.

“—I suppose we can find a way to work around it. But there are far better and more suitable girls out there.”

“Mother, I am _not_ going to marry Annette!”

Emmeline blinked again, owlish confusion rippling through her expression. “Then why did you say you wanted to, Sylvie?”

Sylvain paused, letting the question hang in the air for a long moment before he answered, taking a slow breath.

“Annie—no, sorry, _Annette_ —is a wonderful girl, but she’s not what I’m looking for in love. I am—” He gritted his teeth. “I am _sorry_ if I gave you the wrong impression.”

“Well, I for one am glad you have at least that much sense,” Constantine said, his dinner finally complete.

Sylvain clenched a fist, the cold silver of his knife a hard line against his palm. “Of course, Father,” he said. His eyes dropped down to his plate and he mumbled, “Couldn’t possibly _bear_ to disappoint you one more time.”

“What was that, boy!” 

Sylvain lifted his gaze and smiled, guileless and sure. “Nothing! Nothing, I swear. Sorry, didn’t say anything.” 

Constantine considered him, squinting for a long moment. “Good.”

“Oh, Sylvie,” Emmeline sighed yet again. “We’re trying to look to for you and your future. We want you to be your best self, including marrying the right girl.” 

She raised her napkin to pat away a nonexistent tear. “If only you were more like your father. He was ever the gentleman at your age. And look where we ended up! We’re so happy together, aren’t we, dear?”

Sylvain almost gagged—that was quite the bold lie. His parents could barely stand to be in the same wing of the house.

Constantine nodded. “Quite right! I understood my duty to settle down quickly, build a family, and prepare myself to one day be Lord Gautier. And you would do well to follow in those footsteps, Sylvain!”

Aaaand they’d come full circle.

Sylvain slammed down his fork and knife.

“Of course,” he said, pleasant tone contradicting the violent crack of his utensils against the table. He pushed his chair back, standing, smile cold and saccharine. “Good night, Mother. Father.” He bowed sardonically. “Thank you for dinner.”

He turned and walked out, just barely repressing the urge to storm his way back upstairs as though he were still thirteen and could get away with throwing a tantrum. 

He failed to resist the temptation to viciously throw his door shut behind him.

Sylvain stood, debating the merits of rifling around in the darkness to search for a match and candle to pore over the “mermaid” books yet another time, hoping they could finally reveal some new meaning he hadn’t found in the first hundred times he’d read them. Even if the task didn’t truly calm him, it was a distraction, albeit not a great one since he could basically recite the books from memory at this point, and his eyes would likely glaze over reading the words again.

He took a deep breath, ostensibly to steady himself, more to release the anger building in his veins. 

Suddenly, he was exhausted. 

He sank into the bed and sat, quietly unlacing his shoes. They thumped to the floor one at a time, and he fell back, staring blankly at the empty ceiling.

Just another night in the Gautier household.

* * *

The first wisps of dawn were just barely beginning to creep through his window, the day on the cusp of morning when Sylvain woke. He’d managed to roll over into his sheets during the night, feet no longer dangling onto the ground, so that was nice. Not so nice was the crick in his neck, tension radiating into his shoulders and back. 

He sat up, wincing at the pops of joints finding sockets. He winced again as memories of the previous night resurfaced.

He sighed, scrubbing his face against his hands.

What had he even accomplished, arguing with his parents? Things had been going well, relatively—almost no unnecessary dates, fewer loud comments about how Sylvain spends his time trying to chase fairy tales, generally tolerable suppers eaten in stony silence. He could almost sincerely say that life in Gautier wasn’t suffocating for once. 

No doubt he’d lose all of that freedom again, the pointless arranged dates returning with a vengeance. Poking at the sleeping dragon that was his father’s temper had never turned out well. Sylvain was well acquainted with the source of the spite he’d inherited.

The previous night’s exhaustion hit him again, full-force, as he speculated on the coming months of his life.

The weariness in Sylvain’s mind begged him to lie down and sleep once more, but he knew if he stayed in the manor until after his parents woke, there’d be hell to pay. A nice, early morning ride and a visit to the beach ( _his beach, their beach_ ) seemed like a good way to ignore his problems today. He could easily burn most of the daylight that way. Hopefully the kitchen would have some pastries he could take along so his stomach didn’t start eating itself by midday. 

A ray of light swept in through the window as the sun continued its journey over the horizon, striking his eyes directly. He flinched at the sudden brightness, struck by the impulse to beg it to leave him alone. The sun did not hear his prayer, relentless in the cloudless morning sky, obnoxiously effervescent.

If that was the tone for the day, it was going to be a long one.

* * *

The road was quiet. Granted, it was never truly noisy around Gautier, but this morning was especially peaceful. No one stopped Sylvain to say hello or ask how he was, settling into business more pressing than fawning over the lord’s son for favor. It was almost a little lonely, but in a nice kind of way: the anonymity was a balm, even if he knew it would be short-lived.

A faint sheen of sweat clung to Sylvain, the exhilaration of his earlier ride still humming through him as he set out. It was freeing to let loose, to feel the crisp morning air against his face, to run wild with the one friend he could keep close (no disrespect to Mercedes and Ashe, who had their own lives to live).

Beneficence was a spirited mare, not an ounce of grace to her, tamed only by years and familiarity. 

To this day, Sylvain wished he’d been allowed to name her, but his father had insisted something high-minded and pretentious, claiming that no son of his was going to call his horse anything not magnificent and excellent. “Beneficence” was a terrible name, and both he and the horse hated it. She was Bennie, and that suited her and Sylvain just fine.

He’d returned her to the stables and ducked through the kitchens to beg off some breakfast and lunch, leaving through the servants’ entrance to stay true to his course of avoiding his parents. The head cook had given him a tired look at his profuse and silly praise, shooing him away before he stole too many pies or, goddess forbid, tried to steal any hearts from her staff. 

The day warmed as the sun rose, and the layer of perspiration on Sylvain’s skin became heavier as he walked. He could get away with cooling himself in the shallows of the beach, taking care not to stray beyond waist-depth lest he slip. The water was cool this early in the year, and would be for another two moons. 

He hummed softly as he went along, trying to recall the lyrics to the song Annette had been singing when they’d met in person. Something about swamp beasties and ghosties and explosions? It had been varied and fantastical, silly and romantic and unlike anything Sylvain had ever heard before. Unfortunately, there was no way Sylvain could remember all the words. The melody itself had been very nice though, occasionally striking him at the oddest moments.

Sylvain quickly ran out of lyrics, his mind idly searching for something else to occupy it during his walk. If he was this bored during the stroll, it would only be worse at the beach. He probably should have brought along some of his books. There would be nothing to do there but sit and get sandy. While enjoyable in its own right, stewing in his thoughts for most of the day wasn’t really what Sylvain had in mind when he’d decided to leave. Too late now to go back, unfortunately.

* * *

Sylvain’s anticipation crescendoed as he ducked onto a half-hidden path through the trees, the smell and sound of the sea drawing closer with every step. A part of him knew it was stupid to hope that today would be any different than the hundreds of previous visits, knew that it was ridiculous to believe that today would be the day he finally found his friend again. But like a dog to the dinner bell, he couldn’t help but let his excitement overtake him.

He stepped out onto familiar sand, the disingenuously calm shoreline lapping playfully against the beach in the midground. Shucking off his shoes, he breathed, feeling the cool squish of sand between his toes. He padded slowly toward the waterfront, coming to a halt as the water tickled against his toes, the frigid bite of each wave sending shocks into Sylvain’s body.

It was serene, the only sounds the rush of the sea below him, the salted air rustling and spinning around him, the distant sounds of gulls arguing on the crags beyond the far end of the sand.

Here, in this small stretch of space, he wasn’t Sylvain José Gautier. He was no one—not an heir, not nobility, not even necessarily human. He was just the boy the sea had swallowed and spat back out, dropped to his fate by his brother, more than ten years older and still as scared as the child who’d woken here for the first time. 

Sylvain stepped further, letting the water rise to his ankles. 

This place wasn’t home, but it wasn’t worse than one either. 

Sylvain stood for a long time, his feet numb below the water’s surface, the morning sun warm against his face. He stayed, watching the movement of the sea—it was fluid and changing, never quite the same, mesmerizing and haunting. The sand, too, was always changing, worn down little by little with each wash of salted water, even as the ground below Sylvain’s feet remained reassuringly firm.

A movement on the horizon drew his gaze. It was hard to see at this distance, but a rough, dark shape emerged from the sea. It seemed to crawl onto a rock in the distance and lay there, something dark flipping back and forth through the air.

The sight struck an odd, familiar note within Sylvain. He stared, trying to decipher the memory. 

With one casual flick, the light caught the object and brilliant dark blue light scattered through the air, stealing Sylvain’s breath away.

It couldn’t be.

It ( _he_ ) was so far away—it was impossible to tell if the creature on the rock was any half-fish person, let alone _his_ half-fish person.

But Sylvain had to know. 

He stumbled forward, his ice-cold feet refusing to cooperate as he ran into the water. 

A voice in the back of his head screamed danger, fear, terror, _dread_ at heading straight into open water. He managed to find himself twenty paces or so from shore before the voice reached a fever pitch and he stopped, chest-deep in water and heart hammering uncontrollably.

He would fall. He would drown. 

Any further was bad, unsafe, dangerous, too much, bad, _bad_. He hadn’t swum in years, did he think that suddenly diving in would remind him? 

Get back, get back, _get back_.

But he had to _know_. After so many years, he had to find out.

An internal war raged, his desire to find his way to the beautiful mirage in the distance fighting the horror paralyzing his body. Sylvain let out a shuddering breath, letting it rattle harshly through his lungs in the hopes it could release the irrational anxiety seizing him. It didn’t work, the panic running higher and higher until all he could do was to breathe, ragged and rough and out of control.

The sun was blinding, the sky dizzying, and the cold, cold, cold depths below aching to pull him down.

Sylvain swayed—his hands, his body, his entire being shaking uncontrollably.

He slipped.

His arms hit the water and he flailed wildly, the shock of icy water jolting his muscles and he gasped, the briny, uncomfortable taste of sea assaulting his tongue. 

Sylvain was vaguely aware of a splashing noise in the distance. 

He pedaled wildly, toes scraping against the sand below him. It wasn’t that deep, it _shouldn’t_ be that deep, but he couldn’t stand, couldn’t control his limbs, and his nerves were on fire, the sensory overload of the attack too much, _too much_.

Sylvain gasped and struggled, each movement seeming to carry him further away from shore, from safety. He knew which way was up, the light debilitatingly harsh in his eyes, but his legs and arms refused to cooperate.

Was this going to be the end? The illusion that saved him would also be the one to bring him to his demise. Almost fitting, in a way.

No. _No_.

Sylvain had to swim. Had to fight, had to regain control, had to find the answers he’d sought for so long. If the boy from his memory had even the slimmest chance of being real, he had to know. His curiosity had burned for eleven years, and he could not rest without the truth.

But his limbs were thrashing meaninglessly, and he could feel the numbness starting to settle in. He couldn’t give up, couldn’t die here, but—

A strong force bowled into his midriff, dragging him along back to shore. The wind was knocked out of him, and fear surged impossibly higher, crashing over his every sense.

Seconds later, an age later, some time in between later—Sylvain’s back hit ground, the reassuring sensation of sand between his fingers. He kneaded against it, the grit rubbing roughly against his palms, and he took unsteady breath after unsteady breath. 

A blurry form appeared above him, his eyes unfocused—no, his eyes unable to focus—but the image became sharper with every passing moment. It moved, and—

 _Smack!_

Sylvain had the wind knocked out of him again, a small, strong force propelling into his stomach. He winced, coughing harshly, turning his head to allow the sea water to fall from his mouth. He spat, gagging over the lingering taste.

Something slapped against his legs and he slowly pushed himself up to face whatever had saved him. He failed once or twice to prop himself against his elbows, his arms precarious and unable to support his weight as they shook with the weight of the tension finally draining from him into the sand below. 

A face swam in and out of view, the sunlight still too bright. Dark, blue-black hair around an ethereally pale face, ringed in a halo—his angel.

With monumental effort, Sylvain focused. 

Cold, amber eyes considered him, scanning up and down the length of Sylvain’s body as they peered down a sharp, aristocratic nose. A webbed hand rose, grasping Sylvain’s chin, tilting his face first this way then that. The other found its way into Sylvain’s hair and pulled, feeling through the texture.

Sylvain had the distinct feeling of being examined like cattle at a fair.

“H-hello?” Sylvain said carefully. “And, uh, thanks, I think?”

The face blanched, hands dropping away as a furious blush rose to paint the man’s cheeks. His mouth opened and angry chattering noises poured forth, followed by an irritated scoff.

The sound hit a nostalgic chord in Sylvain and he smiled, broad and honest. “Hey, uh—if you want to check out more of my body, by all means! I’m just…” He paused, unsure how to really phrase the question that he knew wouldn’t be understood. “Who are you? _What_ are you?”

The man clicked his tongue and something slapped Sylvain’s leg once more. He glanced down, only mildly surprised to find an iridescent, almost midnight blue tail and fin lazily resting against the ground. 

Sylvain’s eyes landed on a mark above the man’s hip. This too felt vaguely familiar.

The elation was dizzying. Sylvain didn’t know if this was _his_ half-fish boy, now a man, but the similarities to his memory were incredible. He couldn’t remember the shade of blue, or the shape of his eyes, and the man in front of him seemed to have a rather sour personality instead of a childish one, sure, but—it was too much to not be true, even as it was, very obviously, too good to be true.

Maybe it wasn’t the same man, but Sylvain didn’t want to believe that could be right. He wanted to know what had turned the cheerful boy of his memory into such a dour, grumpy stick. A very beautiful grump, but kind of a downer anyway.

The man watched him, his hands creeping back to pinch and prod as he stared, calculating at Sylvain’s still-prone form. Sylvain wasn’t really a fan of the gaze, but he supposed he had to pay his savior somehow, and Sylvain was good at paying debts with his body.

And he still owed the man for their previous encounter, too.

Sylvain had spent years waiting and hoping for this moment, and now that it was here, he didn’t even know where to begin. He had _so_ many questions, and he literally couldn’t begin to ask them, what with the language barrier. 

But he sure as hell was going to try anyway. 

“So I was wondering…” The man continued to watch Sylvain appraisingly. “Do you maybe remember—” 

A gull cried, drawing the man’s attention. He turned, squinting at the sun, before muttering something under his breath. Sylvain got the distinct impression that he was cursing.

The man threw him a cursory glance and another chiding remark, pausing only to leave Sylvain with a slap from his tail before diving away into the water. The splash doused Sylvain in uncomfortably cold sea once again. 

Sylvain watched the ripples slowly peter out, a goofy grinning rising on his lips.

Sylvain’s smile was giddy. Gleeful. Unrestrainable, splitting his face wide with joy so earnest and unrepentant it almost hurt. He pinched himself in case he was dreaming. His skin stung, the squeeze more forceful and uncontrolled than he had intended, but the pain was reassuring, and it ignited another roaring wave of happiness through his veins.

The grin grew impossibly wider and more honest.

 _He was real._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Skip from "He stumbled forward, his ice-cold feet refusing to cooperate as he ran into the water." to "A strong force bowled into his midriff, dragging him along back to shore." if you would like to avoid the panic attack.
> 
> Thank you once again for reading!
> 
>   * ["pounce"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pounce_\(calligraphy\)) in letter writing
>   * There are some scrapped outtakes that have been posted on [my twitter](https://twitter.com/euphemeas/status/1213967402502905856)
> 



	3. undersea malcontent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The stern tone of Rodrigue’s voice wasn’t new, and the address was not loud, but it cut through the hall and rang against Felix’s ears. The words of duty were well-worn, and Felix had no desire to let them chafe against his already-aggravated mood. He didn’t need the reminder that he couldn’t live up to Glenn’s silhouette or the title of “future Shield”. Ghosts had never been real, and they could not cast wishes to those left behind, but their imprints still lingered in the mind of the living, shadowed and flickering against carefully moored resolve to see only the present and the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please check the [fan](https://twitter.com/punchyfakegamer/status/1214388538827038721) [art](https://twitter.com/slaaneshiisa/status/1215855733624971264) that a couple friends drew for this fic!! I'm so grateful that people are enjoying this fic and I hope you enjoy this chapter too.
> 
> Shout-out [Elliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scatteringmyashes) for helping me beta this one!
> 
> Next update won't be until mid-March at the earliest, too many fan-weeks between now and then... Thank you for understanding!

If Felix had to put up with one more ridiculous word out of this stodgy old fool’s mouth, he was going to give up his ban on spears to take up Dimitri’s trident, and nothing and no one was going to be able to stop him violently shutting up the deluded, asinine krill-bag. Gods only knew he could do with a good skewering. Anything to stop the bile he was spewing in all directions from the middle of the hall.

“With how the humans are poisoning our waters, it is _imperative_ that we find new territory to ensure the safety and health of our people!” Lord Kleiman shouted, emoting wildly with his arms and tail. “If we cannot resist the changes caused by humans, then we must find other ways of sustaining ourselves! Whatever the cost, we must save the Kingdom of Faerghus!”

Felix scoffed under his breath. What a crock of shit. 

It wasn’t that the dullard was _completely_ wrong about humans and their impact on mer society, but his poetic speeches about protecting the Kingdom and its borders were little more than lyrical octopus slime calculated to improve his standing in court. And, more frankly, Felix had run out of patience for this kind of grandstanding eons ago, long before he had even been expected to place a single fin into the cavernous coral court where the crown prince and regent took petitions from minor nobility and the populace at large. The greasy politics of favoritism had always turned Felix’s stomach and would continue to do so no matter how Rodrigue argued that he had to temper his expectations. 

The prince, too, was very clearly bored and annoyed with the proceedings, his eyes glazed and roaming as he struggled to care about the self-important lecture being thrown at him. Dimitri was better at feigning patience than Felix—in that Felix had never had any desire to pretend he could stand these twits— but his normally kind and placid smile was strained and the grip of his right hand threatened to shatter his scepter (a ridiculous, gaudy object, its uselessness doubled by the fact that Blaiddyd line was prone to breaking it every few generations with their abnormal strength), even reinforced as it was.

Every crack to the false, kingly air Dimitri desperately tried to project struck Felix with another note of frustration on his best friend’s behalf. He could never understand why the crown prince didn’t just use his status to shut up the worst of the petitioners, why he felt the need to bend to the covetous will of any who dared open their mouths. He should have at least prevented them from making repeat requests and wasting the court’s time.

This particular dolt came every moon and made the same speech, his greed and simpering ill-disguised as he suggested expanding into open water. Like so many others, he was keen on claiming territory that the more nomadic tribes relied on for safe passage, blind to the needs of any but other like-minded nobles. Kleiman was predictable and stupid, his gaze beady-eyed as he insulted the Duscur clans for daring to be not Faerghus-born and Kingdom-raised. Despite the obvious vanity fueling the decrepit buffoon’s oily and ignorant words, he had somehow amassed enough support among like-minded blockheads to have a “coalition”, making it harder now to shut him up than it would have been when he had first started with his proclamations eight moons ago.

Felix scowled, willing his eyes to bore holes through the imbecilic, old simpleton.

Unfortunately, it did not work. The pompous piece of porpoise shit continued extolling the wonders of hungrily and needlessly making enemies of allies. How easy it was to claim that one’s ideas were for the greater good when one need never see battle nor shed blood to seek those ends.

Felix rolled his eyes loudly, unashamed of his irritation with the kingdom’s more self-serving faction, and let his mind wander to less unpleasant subjects. He knew where his thoughts would inevitably land, knew what object of fascination had occupied far too many of his waking hours, knew what image had danced behind his eyelids in every waking hour and stupidly across every distorted dream. 

There were numerous other ideas he could focus on in the valiant effort of _not_ thinking about that.

Felix’s usual topics ran a little drier than usual, no obvious prospect of scavenging new human weapons from shipwrecks and little to no chance to openly exercise his existing array of swords and daggers against real opponents without earning a sigh from his father or an attempt to purge his collection of human-wrought steel from Ingrid. 

Hunting had also been more scarce, the schools they chased weakened and thinned from the poison that had been dumped into the sea from the land above. The sickness wasn’t limited to their food, though no mer had yet been found gravely ill beyond a few of the eldest whose constitutions were already poor and counting down their last days. Even Ingrid’s favorite dolphin had fallen ill, her blowhole swollen and infected as she struggled to breathe.

Still, he would _not_ think about a particular human or the encounter he’d had half a moon prior when Felix had swam to the surface to not be in the Kingdom for a few hours. A respite from Rodrigue’s expectations, from Dimitri’s fretting, from Ingrid’s lectures—a quiet, peaceful chance to get away from the endless monotony of proper, noble chivalry, if only for a little while. Instead, Felix had watched a smiling moron throw himself into the sea, leaving Felix no choice but to have to save the dumbass from—

Okay, so Felix was thinking about the human again. _Fuck_.

The human hadn’t been anything bad to look at, and his voice had been smooth—almost musical—and excitable in the way that the most well-trained, well-kept pets often were. But he was still an absolute idiot for apparently deciding to run out into the water without any concept of how to swim. The greatest mystery of all was how anyone could almost drown in the shallows. From the first time he’d learned of their existence, it had always seemed strange to Felix that anyone could struggle to breathe in water. Air chafed a bit against his gills—biting, cold, prone to moving too fast—but it had never choked him or filled his lungs too unpleasantly.

The human had said something to Felix before the angle of the sun had beckoned him away. It had sounded… almost wistful? Something in that had felt familiar, but Felix was sure he’d never met a human before, so he had no idea why that might be. 

“Thank you, Lord Kleiman,” said Dimitri’s voice, cutting into Felix’s thoughts. He bowed, far too deep to be appropriate for a prince. Felix clicked his tongue. For all of Dimitri’s insistence on appearances and propriety, he always overdid it and came out looking like sap. “We will, of course, take all your concerns into consideration.”

Lord Kleiman leered, his smile so smug Felix could feel it curdling his last meal. At least he hadn’t taken Dimitri’s words as a cue to begin his diatribe once more.

Felix’s father leaned forward and placed a hand on Dimitri’s shoulder as he addressed Lord Kleiman in Rufus Blaiddyd’s place, his eyes narrowing as he glanced at the empty podium Dimitri’s uncle often failed to occupy. Felix was sure he’d hear Rodrigue sigh later about the prodigal regent’s absence from court day again. “Faerghus thanks you for your concern and support, but understand that we cannot immediately take the action you seek. We are aware of the situation and are doing all we can to contain it and ensure the health and wellness of all our people.”

Kleiman sneered at Rodrigue, too self-important to stoop to showing any respect for the kingdom's most senior advisor and former strategist. Felix could relate to this particular sentiment—Rodrigue had lost all credibility with him four sun-cycles ago—though he could never accept Kleiman and his motives. 

Rodrigue turned to address the rest of the hall. “Thank you all for coming today, the kingdom thanks you for your support.”

Dimitri bowed briefly to the room, the motion still as awkward and stilted as it had been the first time he’d arrived in court as the crown prince without a king and Felix had attended as his future right hand and advisor. The thought sent an unpleasant pang of nostalgia for long-lost childhood days—it felt like the unwieldy weight of the single spear in Felix’s weapon collection, broken and battered and still etched with the scars of ambush.

Felix clenched his fist, letting the sharp pricks of nails embedding themselves in his calloused palm ground him. 

Across the room, Dimitri threw him a hopeful, relieved glance, and Rodrigue watched him expectantly. 

Felix snorted, turning toward the side entrance before his father and Dimitri could catch up. Rodrigue would undoubtedly be disappointed by Felix’s less than lordly behavior, but he’d lost the right to Felix’s respect and doggedly obedient compliance as his heir when Glenn had passed, a victim to his blind ideals and the worthless grandeur of chivalry. He was too stuck in his ways, too attached to a broken system, too _wrong_ for Felix to place faith in him once more.

“Felix.” 

He ignored Rodrigue’s call, instead mapping his route to his grotto. He was careful to avoid using the same path too regularly; it was safest not to allow himself to be followed. The stuffy lecture could wait. 

The stern tone of Rodrigue’s voice wasn’t new, and the address was not loud, but it cut through the hall and rang against Felix’s ears. The words of duty were well-worn, and Felix had no desire to let them chafe against his already-aggravated mood. He didn’t need the reminder that he couldn’t live up to Glenn’s silhouette or the title of “future Shield”. Ghosts had never been real, and they could not cast wishes to those left behind, but their imprints still lingered in the mind of the living, shadowed and flickering against carefully moored resolve to see only the present and the future. 

“Felix!”

It was louder this time, more insistent, and it twisted the knot in Felix’s chest. He swam a little faster, diving away as soon as he found his way through the gap in the coral.

He didn’t belong in court, he’d never belonged—politicking and perfidy and pretentiousness, all things Felix loathed and had no desire to ever learn to love. He was a warrior first, a keen edge seeking what was right rather than what was profitable and self-serving, a weapon that could do more than hone himself in the service of selfish masters. 

He didn’t belong there, and he wished Dimitri and his father could accept that. 

* * *

The small cave was quiet when he arrived, not a single sword out of place, a passive tranquility hovering in the isolated space. That knowledge did nothing to settle the irritation crawling through Felix’s veins, and he grabbed one of his better blades and took a few careless swings. His tail betrayed his vexation as he tested a few basic forms, the fin flicking unconsciously back and forth in small, impatient twitches. 

He willed himself to breathe deeply, letting the bubbles gurgle lazily from his gills, a slow moment passing as he forced his eyes to drift shut. Passably controlled, he dove away, making northeast for an isolated spot where he could train his technique with no nosy busybodies to bother him.

The smaller wildlife fled at Felix’s thunderous approach, a few fish scampering away as he swam near, and eels and rays dove down to bury themselves in the sand. He was used to animals dodging away from the steel of his temper, and while he might have minded their fear as a child, Felix didn’t care nowadays.

He swung as he reached the kelp forest, arm arching as he hacked wildly through the seaweed.

It wasn’t quite cathartic, swinging at limp, docile enemies that bent to the current and fell against gentle strokes, not wholly fulfilling in the way the blended disgust and irritation roiling in his gut needed it to be. The trick was to cut the plants precisely, unerring and with as little movement as possible, so that what was left formed exact, tessellated patterns. Control was key. There was pride to be had in the beauty of a good blade and strong movements, even as other mer disdained his use of the human tool in favor of heavily-steeped tradition of broad-headed spears of shell and stone.

Mer-crafted weapons were a thing of beauty, iridescent and quick, more resistant to the rust and decay that would eventually take all of Felix’s collection. But those spears were Glenn’s, not Felix’s, and he had his own path to forge. He could not, _would_ not be another mindless minnow emptily toiling away in the school that was Faerghan society.

The haphazard circle of shorn seaweed drifted down and settled into the sand below Felix, a carved swathe through the tranquil forest where Felix had let his frustrations manifest. While it had felt freeing to loosen his anger, letting his emotions run through his blade and form the sharpest of edges, the lack of a true opponent was grating and had only fueled the furnace of his destructive desires. He longed to train alongside Ingrid and her troop, but even the thought of submitting himself to interacting with another mer, of exposing himself to Ingrid’s lectures—there was no way he could deal with that.

Felix let his shoulders drop, willing the tension to wash away in the gentle swell of the water passing him by. The coil loosened, but only enough that he could feel an exhaustion settling in, and Felix heaved a low sigh. 

This wasn’t the place to be, but he still had hours to kill before he could even consider returning to Faerghus. He turned his head upwards, eyeing the daylight sparkling its way into the water, weaker than it had been when Felix had first arrived.

Fully resolved, he turned back toward the grotto to leave the sword behind. It wasn’t as though he needed to return it to the surface land above. 

* * *

The sky was a hazy blue, bleeding carelessly into warmer tones of orange and magenta as the sun started to tip below the horizon. Felix had seen open air at sunset before, but it nevertheless always managed to strike him how vibrant and reflective it could be above the water when the place itself was so cold and empty. The surface was—well, not boring, exactly, but an unlikable place, filled with strange creatures covered in hair, far too loud and filled with smells that assaulted Felix’s senses. It was a strange, uncomfortable place, but it was different, and for now, that was as much as Felix needed. 

He hadn’t truly had a goal for coming up here, but anything was better than returning home to twiddle his thumbs and watch Dimitri cow to the kingdom’s demands or listen to Rodrigue’s droll opinions about the state of the world. 

Felix made for the familiar rock in the distance, clambering deftly onto it. There wasn’t much sun left to absorb, the air too cool to truly enjoy the eerie lack of pressure against his body, but he would have to take what he could get. The feeling of his skin drying was as prickly and strange as the first time, and he squirmed slightly as the sensation itched its way through his tail and up his body. 

Despite the discomfort, Felix enjoyed sitting on this rock. It was an alright view: sea on all sides and a lush green line of foliage in the distance where the land rose up from the water. There, on the horizon, was the beach where Felix had dragged a particular idiot after a certain incident. Stupid humans, couldn’t even breathe properly, their bodies managing to have all the proper orifices except a blowhole or gills. 

Felix hadn’t been back since, but from what he remembered of the event, he could imagine the human returning daily to stare wide-eyed into the stoic water, hoping it would spit up another mer at him. He seemed the type.

Actually.

Felix squinted, staring at the vague shape standing on the beach. It appeared to be waving to him, and quite enthusiastically. There was a pause as it approached the water, a hesitation and a wariness, but it placed first one leg and then another into the water and stepped determinedly. The figure stopped when the water reached its knees and called out, voice barely audible across the rush of water. 

Felix flashed back to the incident that day leading up to the previous full moon with cold clarity.

Fucking hell. No way.

He dove off the rock, racing toward the shoreline before the idiot could let himself get too far into the water and endanger himself again. Felix peeked above the waterline as the sand rose below him, and he slowed to a halt several body lengths away from the human. It wouldn’t do to get too close, not when he didn’t know if he could trust this human. Not when humans in general were far from trustworthy. 

Up close, Felix could clearly see that this was the same blockhead he’d run into last time, bright red hair standing messily in all directions and a quavering smile painted across his lips. His eyes lit up as he spotted Felix and he made to move further into the water. 

Felix scowled and lifted his head above the water. “Stay back! If you make me have to drag you back to shore again, I fucking swear to gods, I _will_ make you regret it.”

The man looked confused. He carefully extended his hand, an offering of… _something_ , though Felix couldn’t decipher what. He glared at it and clicked his tongue impatiently. 

The man dropped his hand, and his expression dropped with it, his eyes turning round and wet like those of a baby seal that had been denied its favorite snack, a little exaggerated and unnecessarily whiny. A small shiver of guilt crawled into the pit of Felix’s stomach anyway. Perhaps he’d been a little harsh. 

Felix sighed. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but—fuck you, you have to take care of yourself, so just—! Just! Don’t be stupid. I can’t always be here to save you.” He rolled his eyes, voice dropping to a grumbled mutter. “What are you even trying to accomplish? Learn to swim if you can’t learn to breathe, I know humans aren’t _that_ incompetent.”

The man said something, speaking in the strange, lyrical sounds he’d used the last time Felix had encountered him. There was no way of knowing if the man was threatening him or complimenting him, but from the half-smug expression and the confident tilt of his stance, Felix could guess. He spoke for a long while, gesturing enthusiastically, and took another step or two further into the water. 

The man seemed to tremble with every pace he took, and he heaved a careful, unsteady breath as he lifted his leg another time. He dropped it, unable to progress further, and Felix stared at him quizzically, his focus flickering between the tension knitting together the man’s brows and the quivering of his limbs.

After a long moment, he lifted the leg again.

“Stop that,” Felix said. The man looked at him, hope shining through the strain on his face and the anxious energy radiating from his entire being. He spoke again, short of breath and half-afraid, following the words with another half-hearted attempt to walk into the water once more, but it was quickly aborted. 

Fear and irritation hit Felix in equal measures as the man struggled with himself and he flicked his tail irritably under the water. This was painful to watch. “What are you trying to do?”

The man didn’t respond, focused fully on the water in front of him and his legs. Felix didn’t know what was wrong with him, but there had to be _something_ causing him distress. It seemed to get worse with every motion he made towards heading deeper into the water. 

The human lifted a limb again and stumbled, his arms floundering for a long moment before he wrenched himself backwards and coughed out stilted, choked breaths. It took infinitely long seconds before he calmed again, struggling to stand as he looked again at Felix. Something of a war raged between the man and his body as he attempted to take yet another step deeper into the water.

It didn’t seem like the man was going to stop attempting to walk into the water despite obviously being unsettled by it. 

Felix rolled his eyes and swam slowly forward.

The man perked up, relief radiating from his broad shoulders as he righted himself and shuffled slightly backward. Felix let himself be led ashore, relaxing infinitesimally as the human allowed himself to finally make a retreat to the beach. He stopped as the man stepped out of the water, far closer than before but not quite within reach of that strangely over-eager hand, breath bated as he waited to see if the numbskull would dive back into the sea separating them. At least it was _really_ too shallow for the man to endanger himself. 

His legs gave way and he collapsed, shivering, onto the sand below. His breath was rapid and shallow, and he stared off into nothing as Felix watched, nonplussed. Were all humans like this? They had strange limbs and strange faces, Felix knew, their skin warm and beaten by the sun, their bodies adorned with all manner of strange items to cover their torsos and limbs, down all the way to shells for their leg-endings. This man’s shells were a plain, ugly, brown sort, and they sat resting not far off, settled half out of sight by a rock. 

The man rattled out another shaky breath.

Minutes stretched and the sun sank behind Felix before the man’s breathing fully evened out and he looked up. He spoke again, his mouth forming oddly familiar tones that echoed strangely in a distant part of Felix’s memory. Felix still couldn’t understand them, but he took them to be complimentary. 

“Don’t do that again,” Felix said, tired and scolding. He paused, replaying the words in his mind, turning over the words and tone before wrinkling his nose. Gods, he was starting to sound like Ingrid. Felix repressed a gag at the thought. 

The man offered Felix a wavering smile. 

Felix snorted. “Who knew humans were so idiotic. It’s a wonder you all have the intelligence to rub together to cause any trouble.”

The man’s expression was beatific, shining brilliantly as though Felix had just offered him the greatest possible words of praise. 

Like this, the man could even be considered attractive. Not by mer standards—his skin wasn’t naturally pale, his hair disheveled and short, and his limbs too loose and unpoised—but, Felix thought, this human might have what some would consider a symmetric and pleasing face. He looked a little soft (were all humans lacking in training?) but far from weak. Were he mer, he’d probably make for a decent sparring partner. As a human, he could probably appreciate Felix’s interest in swords, a kindred spirit among all those who disdained a finer craft than lancework. 

This man wasn’t perfect by any means, but there wasn’t any guilt to be found in examining him and cataloguing his features. 

The man said something, the tone warm and almost flirty, and Felix recoiled reflexively. The man laughed, offering his hand once more. He pointed to himself and said a single word. Felix frowned.

“What?”

The man repeated himself. The human tongue was so strange, full of musical noises and unending strings of sound. Felix stared blankly. 

The man shrugged, leaving his hand extended for Felix to approach. He considered it.

In the distance, one of the loud, feathered air-creatures cried, and its brethren followed suit with an obnoxious series of responses. Felix blinked, taking stock of the situation. The sun had fully fallen now, and the beach was cast in long shadows, the daylight of the surface over. It made limited difference in the Kingdom, where the sun did not pierce quite as fully, but they too slept when the bright sky-pearl made its bed in favor of its paler cousin, and he needed to be rested if he was to meet with Ingrid to train in the morning. 

The man looked around, seeming to understand Felix’s thoughts. He pouted, but dragged himself to a standing position and made his way toward his leg-endings’ shells. He paused as he pulled them on, smiling apologetically to Felix. He offered that word once more, pointing to himself in the process. The third time didn’t make it any less weird.

“I have to go,” Felix said. He nodded to the human once, who waved back mournfully, then turned back to the sea. 

When he was far enough from the beach, he chanced a backward peek over the waterline, and there the human stood, still gazing listlessly out at the water. He spotted Felix and gave him one last beaming grin and hearty wave before disappearing into the trees, an obnoxious spring to his step. 

Felix dove, face distressingly warm.

* * *

Felix had hoped Rodrigue would be asleep or in the library in the far wing of the palace when he returned. No such luck.

“Oh, Felix, there you are,” Rodrigue said, waving warmly for Felix to join him.

Felix debated just turning and leaving again. Rodrigue probably wouldn’t follow—he hadn’t in many suns and he wouldn’t today—so he could likely get away with it if he tried. Whatever Felix did, it made no difference. It hadn’t ever made a difference. He was the weaker imitation, the last resort, the backup plan; he hadn’t been second place even before his brother’s death, his father’s preferred children Glenn and chivalry. 

And then Plan A had fallen through.

Rodrigue’s fallback had kicked in, but Felix was going to make sure it was on his own terms.

“I’m tired.”

It was obvious that Rodrigue was too—his smile was taut and worn at the edges, though not quite false. (Never false, but sometimes a half-truth.) The old mer was probably overworking himself again to cover for Rufus Blaiddyd’s shortcomings. “Please, Felix, it won’t take long.”

Felix fought down the itch of avoidance chafing under his skin. “Fine.”

“Thank you, son.” Rodrigue said, the haze of exhaustion clinging to him, a heavy aura radiating as he sluggishly led the way to the map room. His voice stayed bright, _conversational_. Annoyingly polite. “I was hoping to ask you how you’ve been. We haven’t had the opportunity to speak much lately.”

They hadn’t, but Felix would hardly count that as either his fault or his problem. “And?”

Rodrigue paused, gesturing into the record-filled room. Felix considered colliding with his father as he entered, but he thought better of it at the last moment. Who knew how brittle his bones were at his age? “And nothing! Can’t an old mer just want to see how his son is doing?”

“I’m fine,” Felix said, grimacing. “I don’t need you breathing down my neck.”

Rodrigue frowned, pausing as he took his place on the other side of the large, old tortoise shell occupying the center of the room. The etched map of Faerghus and its surrounding territory lay rough between them on the inside of the bone, artisanally crafted and carefully carved, but worn and faded through endless sun-cycles of use. 

“Where were you this afternoon, Felix?” Rodrigue help back a yawn with his hand, the movement doing little to hide the gross state of his teeth or the weariness sagging into his joints. The sooner Felix could get this conversation over with, the sooner he could find solace in his time alone, and the sooner Rodrigue could retire for the night.

“Around.”

Rodrigue sighed and his hand absently traced the grooves embedding shell’s edge. “Dimitri and I would have liked your input on Lord Kleiman’s proposal. His expansions would drastically change the harmony we have with our neighbors.”

Felix’s eye caught on _Duscur_ , the engraving small next to the proud proclamation of _Kingdom of Faerghus_ , but an old one that had stood through shells and iterations of the map. It lay faded and with a large gash struck through it, the mark of misplaced blame marring truth in favor of prejudice.

“My opinion is the same as it’s always been. Tell him to fuck off. We need our allies, we don’t need him.”

“Language,” Rodrigue warned, fatigue heavy in the reprimand. Felix scowled and waited, refusing to let himself say anything less harsh about the selfish noble he _knew_ Rodrigue had also lost patience for months ago. Rodrigue shook his head, the motion exasperated and almost—well, Felix would call it fond, but he knew that there was little chance of that. “Well, I suppose you’re not wrong, but he is quite insistent. Dimitri will have to do something to appease him and his faction sooner or later.”

“They can all go fuck off.”

Rodrigue let out a small chuckle. “If only we could all have your tenacity, my son.” He gazed forlornly at the map, pointlessly lost in nostalgia. 

Felix grunted. All of Faerghan society could do with a little less propriety and a little more bold stubbornness. Gods knew they could save so much time if people were fully honest about their opinions.

“You know, in some ways, you’re just like Glenn and your mother. They were brave and brash too.”

His father, like so many other gods-damned Faerghan mer, was fond of comparing Felix to the dead he would never again know and had no chance of catching up to. Living in the present was apparently a luxury for only the few who allowed themselves to understand that the past was over and gone, dead and left behind, worn away and bourn gracefully.

Felix made a noise that Rodrigue could feel free to interpret as assent. 

“Ah. Forgive me, I was reminiscing. I know you don’t like it, Felix, my apologies.”

Felix huffed. “Are you done?” he said, eyes darting meaningfully to the door.

“Well, I was hoping to get your thoughts on other subjects, but—yes, it is late, I suppose. You may go.” Rodrigue nodded genially. “Good night, Felix.”

A curt nod was all the goodbye that Felix gave, the water frigid between them as he left, Rodrigue behind him gazing into the map as though it might return to life and impart to him wisdom on governance.

Felix repressed an irritated grunt. It hadn’t been his father’s failings as an advisor that had lost their family his brother.

* * *

It was, Felix supposed, a nice day for a spar. A good day to spend training with friends. 

Even if Ingrid was trying to ruin it.

“I don’t care, Felix. Take the lance,” she said, forcefully holding the training weapon out. 

Dimitri coughed awkwardly behind Felix—a stunted, garbled word that could have been either of their names failed to escape his throat. They both ignored him. Beside him, Dedue let out a quiet sigh.

Felix stared at the weapon with a grimace. His personal dislike of lances notwithstanding, Ingrid’s superior proficiency at the weapon would give her a natural advantage. Not that he would necessarily lose. Even with the wrong weapon, Felix was more than skilled enough to beat her, but she had won their bouts more times than he cared to admit and he didn’t like to add to that number. 

“I brought my sword,” he said, his grip tightening on his rapier. It was one of the better pieces of his collection, barely used before Felix had found it lying on some polyps about two hours swim west of the Kingdom. There hadn’t been a body nearby, but the ship’s wreckage had been close, the hull ripped apart by poor navigation through the reef. He’d been able to go back to it to search for weapons for almost two whole moons.

“Lance, Felix,” Ingrid said, her eyes stormy as she took in the human weapon. “Don’t think I won’t go to your so-called collection and destroy them all. You’re lucky that your father and His Highness tolerate it at all. All those pieces of human nonsense—what would Glenn say!”

“Don’t you dare.” Felix hissed, sword rising to point at Ingrid’s throat. “My brother taught me to think for myself, to work _hard_ for what I want. And I’ve done that.”

“You’re wasting your time on childish toys that will rot before you know it! Glenn wanted you to be your own man, to protect yourself! This isn’t that.”

“And your obsession with traditional weapons is? You’re going to over-specialize, you’re going to be so stuck in a dream, and then one day, you’ll _fail_ because you’re too attached to what you think a knight _should_ be. You’ll die trying to live up to Glenn’s memory, and you’ll fail because you didn’t learn from his mistakes.”

“How _dare_ you! Glenn was—”

Dimitri coughed again, more confidently, and he swam up to push his way in front of Ingrid. “Please! Ingrid, Felix. Let’s not fight.” 

Felix begrudgingly lowered his weapon. Accidentally hurting the prince in temper would be Ingrid’s fault, but it wasn’t something he could have on his conscience. 

“She started it,” Felix said, petulant.

Ingrid glared at him over Dimitri’s shoulder. “I’ve said it a thousand times before, Felix. You need to shape up your behavior! You can’t just keep running off to do gods-only knows what by yourself and skip the rest of your duties! You are going to be Dimitri’s right hand when he takes the crown in a sun and five moons’ time! You have to—!”

Dimitri turned his placating and beseeching gaze on her. “Ingrid, please do not fight. I am sure Felix knows this lesson already, even if he has not fully taken it to heart.”

Felix glared at both of them. There wasn’t anything to take to heart.

Ingrid’s nostrils flared but she kept quiet. 

“We are all friends here. We must treasure that.” Dimitri turned to each of them, gaze vulnerable and beseeching. The prince had always been soft-hearted, and he’d lately been perfecting his dolphin calf eyes. The combination was powerful and, unfortunately, it was working. Felix rolled his eyes and looked away. “Ingrid, let’s stop arguing here for today so we can focus on your and Felix’s training. Felix… please just take the lance.”

Felix sighed roughly, holding his left hand out. 

Ingrid grinned triumphantly as she thrust the weapon towards him. Dimitri gently extracted the sword in Felix’s other hand and backed away as the two of them took their starting places, commenting something quietly to Dedue. Out of the corner of his eye, Felix could spot Dedue shaking his head in that familiar, judgmental way he always did when Dimitri complained of his two oldest friends. 

The King's Guard’s training grounds were far from ornate, but they were the largest and most accommodating within the radius near the palace. Marked roughly in the sand below them was an uneven circle, the indentation already half-faded and washed away from where it had been drawn earlier in the day. 

There were no hard and fast rules to their spars—especially between Felix and Ingrid, the most evenly matched pair—but once one had been fully knocked out of the ring, lost their weapon, or had a fin touch the sand below, the match ended and the loser conceded a point. The other possible condition for a match to end was if a party surrendered, but both Felix or Ingrid were too prideful for that. 

Felix had at times ignored the loss condition, regardless of whether he was the victor, because if it came down to life-or-death, the enemy wouldn’t stop just because of sparring courtesy rules. They needed to be ready to fight in any way they could. Rather stupidly, Ingrid and Dimitri tended to disagree and would complain if he didn’t stop when he was supposed to. 

Felix scowled at the thought as he tested the weapon Ingrid had forced into his hands, fumbling slightly against it. There didn’t seem to be any good way to hold this lance and its weight rested uncomfortably against Felix’s palms, the wider posture awkward to hands far too used to the balance of his swords. He fidgeted with it, fighting to find the right balance as he gripped and regripped, but before he was ready, Ingrid dove forward and struck.

Felix sloppily brought up his lance to block, gritting his teeth as the impact rattled through the shaft of the poorly-crafted weapon that he was being forced to use. Felix overbalanced, just barely dodging out of the range of Ingrid’s next hit as she whirled around and jabbed again at his waist.

Felix’s Crest Mark reacted instinctively to the proximity of the weapon and Felix could feel it flash behind him defensively, its pulse protecting him from an attack that had already missed. His control with it was getting better, but it still reacted more to his instincts than his command, never quite when he wanted it and never listening when he attempted to invoke it in his training. Felix sometimes forgot it was there, even though the brand always stood out against his pale skin, just barely larger than his hand. 

The pressure from his Crest’s activation was enough to give Ingrid pause. She always froze when a Crest activated, whether it was her own, or Felix’s, or Dimitri’s, and that gap was enough for Felix to finally settle into his form. It was a failing Ingrid would have to correct if she truly wanted to be any use as a knight, but Felix would take any advantage he could gain here without complaint.

He shifted his hands again, tightening his grip as he accepted that this was as good as it was going to get, and he centered himself with a focused breath.

Ingrid raised her lance once more but this time, Felix was the one struck first. The placement was a little off, and Ingrid was barely fazed, pushing his weapon away with ease even as she was forced to back away slightly. 

Still, Felix had a tactical advantage here. She was a traditionalist, wed to her lance forms, and she never considered strategy beyond the rhythm of her daily training, no matter how many times he used that his advantage. He struck again and again, pushing Ingrid away, even as the poor weapon in his hands made it difficult to land his attacks exactly how he wanted to. 

It irked that he couldn’t fight as fluidly without his sword, and it grated that Ingrid wasn’t wrong that he should practice his lancework more. 

Finding an opening, Felix dove for her tail, swinging his own at her face as he flipped. He jabbed the training weapon toward sensitive scales near the base of her fin. She let out a startled noise, but managed to swing herself out of the way before either of Felix’s attacks landed. He hadn’t managed to sway Ingrid’s balance the way he would have liked, but she was shaken by the dirty surprise attack.

A small stone of disappointment at Ingrid’s reaction settled in the pit of Felix’s stomach even as a flash of glee bubbled through him at the success of the attack. It wasn’t the first time Felix had tried something like that. They’d graduated from the nursery a long time ago, and still Ingrid’s naïveté lingered. 

“Careful, Ingrid!” Felix said, taunting as he swept the weapon’s shaft to smack against her arm.

She glared as she whirled around, striking again for his midriff. Felix smacked her weapon away, somersaulting to aim once more with his tail. She was ready this time, and the butt of her lance met him as he hit towards her shoulder. 

“Careful, yourself,” she quipped.

She struck again, the same basic, practiced attack that she always used, and a hit of bitterness flickered through Felix. The age-old frustration that Ingrid had learned none of the lessons of the tragedy stung him and he aimed clumsily toward her shoulder with the blade of his own weapon.

The irritation coursing through him made him careless and Ingrid’s next hit also landed, her weapon clipping his tail and scraping roughly against a few scales. Felix winced at the scratch. Luckily, the sting seemed only to be from the contact—no unfortunately-familiar burn of salt against open wound—and Felix ignored it, pulling out of Ingrid’s reach to steady himself and search for his next opening.

Ingrid dove forward yet again, aiming obviously for his tail again, and he lazily dodged it, frowning as he did so. Ingrid always telegraphed her moves, but that was sloppy even for her. He raised his own lance to strike back, eyeing a blind spot at her back— 

“Ingrid wins!” Dimitri said, voice cutting through Felix’s focus. He was vaguely aware of the sound of polite clapping accompanying Dimitri’s voice. Felix’s grip tightened on the lance as Dimitri turned to him and frowned. “You can put the lance down, Felix.”

Ingrid coughed loudly and pointed at the sand below, quirking an eyebrow at Felix .

The marked ring was almost a body-length away from he floated, suspended in confusion and surprise. So she’d chosen to win by tricking him to swim out of the ring. Felix could feel his cheeks heating at the shame that he’d been taken in so easily. It was a cheap way to win, and not one that any of them usually favored, but Felix could begrudgingly admit that it had worked and been at least a little bit clever. And, the final attack notwithstanding, she’d fought well.

Felix scoffed and lowered the training weapon. “Fine.”

“Better luck next time.” Ingrid grinned victoriously, twirling her lance as an unnecessary flourish to rub her in victory. “Or, you know, maybe admit you’re wrong about lancework and show up to the King's Guard training more than once or twice every moon!”

Felix glared with full intensity at her smug expression. She’d had an unfair advantage with the weapon choice, and they both knew it. “Another match. This time, let me use my sword. I’ll defeat you easily.”

Ingrid rolled her eyes. “ _Fine_ , sure. I’ve _definitely_ never beaten you before when you’ve used your sword.”

She shook her head disparagingly as she took her starting place again. Felix glared at her back and stuck out his hand expectantly, and Dimitri shook his head, replacing the training lance with the rapier. Dedue’s matching sigh was audible across the ring and Felix resisted the urge to send them all a rude hand gesture.

“Be careful, please, Felix. That isn’t a training weapon.”

Felix grunted. “I know.”

“Don’t worry, Your Highness,” Ingrid called, reassuring. “He won’t be able to land a single hit on me.” 

A muscle twitched in Felix’s jaw, his retort dancing on the tip of his tongue, but he restrained himself. He would let his blade do the talking.

* * *

Felix clenched his teeth. He felt slightly battered, his muscles warmed from exertion slightly beyond the threshold of what could be considered enjoyable, but the true pain was of a more mental sort. The final count for the morning had been 3 to 2, only one point in his favor even with the switch to his sword. 

Even using the rapier had come at its price—neither he nor Ingrid had been willing to give a single scale, going all-in on every single one of their bouts. Felix mournfully examined the new notches in his blade and swallowed the unpleasant bitterness that this would be another weapon he would have to retire. Hopefully he could scavenge a replacement soon.

Ingrid had taken the final loss mostly-gracefully, bowing apologies to Dimitri after as she interrupted his exercise in weaponless combat with Dedue. Her stomach had grumbled noisily as she spoke and she’d raced off apologetically to the mess hall to eat with the other King's Guard trainees. She rolled her eyes at Felix good-naturedly and gave him a cursory nod over her shoulder as she passed him. He’d made a face in response. 

“Well done, Felix,” Dimitri said, his voice far too earnest as he praised Felix for only barely scraping a win in the final round. Dimitri hadn’t even seen the spar he was commending Felix for; he and Dedue had headed off into their own ring after only the second round.

“Don’t patronize me.”

Dimitri hummed, frowning as he brought a hand to his chin. “Do you not wish for me to tell you when you fight well? I will try to hold my words if that’s what you want.”

Felix exhaled roughly. “Whatever.” Dimitri looked at him, sad calf eyes boring into Felix’s soul, and he clucked his tongue. “ _Fine_. Yes, you can praise my swordwork. Shut up, okay?”

Dimitri’s shoulders dropped in relief and he put the begging eyes away, satisfied with Felix’s acquiescence. A hand rose to awkwardly pat against Felix’s shoulder and he stared at it, unnerved. Faerghan culture didn’t encourage contact between individuals after childhood, and neither of them had ever been the touchy sort.

“Ah, sorry,” Dimitri said, his hand quickly dropping as he let out an embarrassed cough. “Dedue has been introducing me to Duscurian customs. Did you know that they’re far less distant than Faerghan mer? Apparently, it is common to embrace others as a sign of affection.”

Felix stared at his shoulder, the shadow of the touch still burning uncomfortably against his skin. “I do now.”

“Yes, ah—. I won’t do it again, my apologies, Felix.” 

Felix blinked. “Thanks.”

“Would you like to join Dedue and myself for a meal?” Dimitri looked eager, hopeful at the prospect of spending more time with his oldest friend. Felix grimaced as he thought back to other recent attempts to spend time with Dimitri in Dedue’s presence. He’d rather eat by himself than be nauseated by Dimitri’s fawning once he very quickly forgot the two of them weren’t alone.

“No thanks.”

“Oh. Alright, then. Well, good day to you, Felix.”

Dimitri almost bowed, but quickly changed course before Felix could get any words of criticism out. He apparently remembered the lectures he’d received about not caving to everyone’s demands like some spineless mollusk hiding in its shell. Good, at least one of his friends was taking his advice to heart. Felix waved him off, turning back to his sword. “Later.”

“Good day, Felix,” Dimitri repeated. Dedue nodded once to Felix before his gaze back to Dimitri, his posture relaxing and gaze softening immediately. Disgusting. They were disgusting, and no one but Felix had realized it yet. 

A pang of loneliness twisted Felix’s gut.

Sometimes, Felix missed his best friend, the one who hadn’t yet lost his parents, who didn’t yet blame himself for all the kingdom’s shortcomings, who wasn’t waylaid at night by the haunting screams of spirits no one else could sense. Dimitri had changed that day four sun-cycles prior, and he hadn’t returned to Faerghus the same. There were days Felix wondered if he’d returned to Faerghus at all.

No one had been able to prove what had happened. All most knew was that Dimitri had been brought home, haggard and half-healed, by the last member of the Duscur clan that had lost its members to save him. Few had listened to Dedue’s restrained retelling of the human expedition that started it all and Dimitri’s recollections, though favored, were shattered at best. It made little difference to Felix—he understood the truth even without words. He had borne witness to his friend’s change in the following moons, had seen the recovered contraption that had reportedly pierced Glenn and bloomed through his chest, had felt the raw sorrow buried in Dedue’s gaze as he reflected silently.

The tragedy had unchained anti-human sentiment, giving credence to those who would brandish the deaths of the king and queen as reasoning for an expansion of their own powers. Dimitri, on the other hand, had limped away with a ragged scar tearing across his back from left shoulder to right hip, just barely missing his Crest mark. During his nights in the palace, Felix would wake to agonized screams and sobs emanating from the other end of the wing.

Everything and everyone had changed in that day, Dimitri most of all. Even though it sometimes hurt to look at the prince as he was now, or to look at how Dedue filled the space beside him so effortlessly, for the sake of his friend, Felix could be glad that there was one bright spot that had guided him home.

* * *

Felix wondered if there would ever be a court day that wasn’t boring and abysmal.

He twitched his tail irritably as the mer assembled in the hall slowly filed out. Thankfully, Kleiman had been absent today, the hall granted a reprieve from his fear-mongering and fake concern, but even so, the news hadn’t been good, multiple reports of the fishing schools even weaker than previously noted. One mer had wept as she’d reported her grandmother’s passing at the hands of sickness caused by human poison.

It didn’t help that Ingrid’s favorite dolphin was now so desperately ill that the healers had recommended she make preparations for her death. One had mentioned rumors of a sea witch residing a day’s swim west of Faerghus, but rumors never helped anyone and the legends of sea witches usually coincided with horrible bargains that never ended well for anyone. 

As the final stragglers were ushered out, the remaining advisors hovered, wide-eyed and leering, over Dimitri, pointedly remarking on each of their preferred courses of action, barking like a pack of hungry sea lions all vying for his attention. 

“Prince Dimitri—”

“Your Highness—”

“I think—”

“It would be best—!”

Their voices were shrill and cutting, offensive to Felix’s ears even as removed as he was from the conversation. He could only imagine the abuse that Dimitri’s took as he endured the sharp-tongued haranguing from the colony of shrimp clawing their way into him to climb the court’s social ladder.

“Please, one at a time. I will do my best to address all of your concerns and thoughts.” Dimitri’s pleading was pathetic, and a small part of Felix wanted to cut in to yell at the advisors to stop breathing down his friend’s neck. 

But Felix had never been adept in court matters, and the haunting laughter of voices mocking him for being too weak and emotional had never truly faded.

Behind Dimitri’s back, Rodrigue made eye contact with Felix across the hall. Felix scowled, waiting with bated breath to be drawn into the pointless conversation that would doubtlessly wear on his already shortened temper, leading to another minor scandal about his behavior. 

His father considered him for a moment, hand rising to wave Felix over, before he seemed to change his mind and nodded, dismissing him for the day.

Disbelief and relief washed over Felix in equal parts, with a inkling of confusion twisted between them. Still, he wasn’t about to reject the gift seahorse and he nodded his own farewell before turning and exiting, carefully ignoring the bickering voices still echoing behind him.

Felix swam east, idly wondering if there might finally be new shipwrecks to peruse.

* * *

Felix broke through the surface of the water and let the current push him towards his favored rock. He hadn’t intended to come up here today, but there hadn’t been anything better to do. The waters had remained clear of new additions to his collection, and the King's Guard’s hadn’t appealed to him, so he’d been left a little listless after being (thankfully) dismissed from court politics. 

And, maybe, a small part of him had been curious about whether he might run into a particular human today.

The air was warmer today, less abrasive to his gills, but it was still an unpleasant shock to switch from breathing in water to breathing in air. Above him, the sky was cloudless and the sun bright, almost blinding. 

Felix squinted, blinking against the harsh daylight. If he stayed above water for too long, he’d hurt his skin. It had happened once when he was barely more than a baby, back when he’d still been in the kingdom’s nursery in the shallows and had accidentally beached himself at low tide. When he’d finally been found and brought back to the tide pools, his skin had been icky and red, and had sloughed off in strange flakes for nearly half a moon. Dimitri had worried, Ingrid had laughed, and the nurses had chided him for his carelessness. Glenn hadn’t let him live it down when he’d learned on his next visit, though his brother had thankfully missed the worst of the strange sun-affliction—the five sun-cycles between them enough that the elder was transitioning to living full-time in the kingdom—so his teasing had been mercifully limited.

Felix lounged on the rock, basking in the warmth of the stone below him. The nagging voice that sounded unnecessarily like Ingrid popped in every minute or so to warn him that he might damage his skin again, but he ignored her. Kindly fuck off, Ingrid-voice. Neither the real one nor the imitation that had wormed its way into his head were Felix’s mother no matter how much both liked to act like they were. 

There was a shout over the water and Felix sluggishly sat up in response, a faint annoyance gurgling at the back of his mind. He was fairly certain he knew who that was. 

And, of course, as Felix looked out over the water, a spot of red was making its way into the water once more, a distant arm swinging wildly back and forth as it tried to catch Felix’s attention.

He didn’t understand why this human kept forcing himself into the water when he so clearly found it unpleasant. 

He sighed as he slid off the rock, resigned to his fate of preempting one idiot’s strange attempts to simultaneously swim and avoid all contact with water. The water was cold against his skin after his rest against the rock, but it was refreshing and the Ingrid-voice smugly informed him that this was a good thing. 

Felix stopped before he reached the beach, a little closer than the last time, his stare unimpressed as he broke through the water to watch the human. The man’s face wasn’t pale this time and his breathing even as he beamed down at Felix, though he hadn’t made it as far into the water because Felix had already learned to head him off.

The man extended his hand again, and, feeling daring and maybe a bit of pity, Felix swam towards it. The eyes watching widened, round like the silver and yellow pieces of metal Felix sometimes found in shipwrecks, and the man spoke, his words rapid and incomprehensible as he babbled excitedly. 

“Shut up,” Felix said, his face flushing slightly at the attention. “You’re talking too fast.” 

He stopped in front of the man, their bodies close enough that a powerful swat of Felix’s tail would sweep into the man and the sand below his feet. Felix raised his own hand, letting it rise slowly out of the water and hover suspended in the air for a long moment before he found his resolve and placed into the other’s. 

The hand trembled slightly as Felix slipped his fingers against its palm, the touch sending a jolt through both of them. Felix could see the other man’s widen impossibly more, and he felt his own heart skip a beat. The other man’s hand was warm—uncannily so—and larger than Felix’s, though it seemed to still be smaller than Dimitri or Dedue’s. 

There was a quiet beat as the man stared down at him. Then, all of a sudden, the hand holding his was a death-grip and Felix could feel himself being hauled upward.

He did _not_ squeak in surprise.

An arm wrapped itself around Felix’s waist like a strange, warm eel, and Felix floundered to find his balance as all but his tail’s fin were unceremoniously pulled from the water. There was an unintelligible shout of joy as the man wrapped himself around Felix. Felix’s arms were pinned to his side in the stranglehold and his fists beat weakly against the man’s waist, his tail uselessly splashing seawater over the both of them.

“What—! What are you doing!” Felix yelled, very calmly, as he thrashed in the man’s arms. For a kelp-like, soft human, he was still surprisingly strong. “Let me go, you hideous monstrosity of a being! Put me down!”

The man’s voice was thrilled, strangely loud and uncomfortably joyous, as he very much did _not_ put Felix down. He repeated the same two sounds over and over, the words loud as he cried them against Felix’s ear. Felix continued to fight his way out of the grasp, but it seemed to be mostly useless. There was heat creeping into Felix’s cheeks and a small seed of contentment buried under the layers of shock and irritation. 

Felix finally managed to catch the man’s legs with his tail and down they both went, the arms enveloping him finally loosening as they instinctively moved to catch the sand below.

The man let out a grunt as his rear hit the ground and Felix rolled off him and into the water, putting a careful, guarded distance between them as he glared at the human who had just tried to murder him in a very weird and roundabout way. 

The man laughed, sheepish, hand rising to wipe away tears from his eyes as he said something and offered his hand once more. Felix hoped it was an apology because he as hell was owed one. 

“Don’t do that again,” Felix said, frowning as he swam closer against his better judgment.

The man pulled his hand from the water, using the other to point to himself. 

The word he uttered was familiar, echoing with Felix’s memory of his last visit, and he looked expectantly at Felix. 

Felix frowned. He didn’t know what that was.

The man repeated himself, pointing insistently at his own chest.

Perhaps the man just wanted him to repeat the word? He carefully opened his mouth, stumbling as he attempted to mimic the noises. “Sy—Sylvain.” The word was strange against his tongue, the sound too smooth as it molded his mouth into unfamiliar shapes.

The man nodded and repeated himself again, his smile brighter than the sun still beating down overhead. Felix could feel the ugly flush taking over his whole face. He didn’t appreciate others laughing at him and he wasn’t going to repeat it again. He scowled challengingly at the man.. 

The man blinked at his change in mood, but swiftly changed tacts, using the hand not holding Felix’s to point to the mer instead, his head tilting quizzically.

Felix stared at the finger, overcome by a small desire to bite it.

When he looked back up at the man’s face, there was a small pout painting his lips as he gestured again at Felix.

Oh. _Oh_. Felix could hear the Ingrid-voice chiding him for being as slow as he accused Dimitri’s advisors of being. 

The word he’d repeated was a name, and the man (Sylvain) wanted to know Felix’s.

“My name is Felix.”

Sylvain tried to copy the phrase, badly garbling the clicks and lone chirp as he tried. 

Felix repressed a laugh, even as he cringed at the horrible mangling of his language. “Felix,” he repeated.

“Felix,” Sylvain said, the word lilting against his tongue, the name far more beautiful in human speech than on any mer tongue. “Felix.” Felix’s traitorous heart skipped another beat as Sylvain repeated it, more sure this time.

Sylvain leaned forward again taking Felix’s other hand in his.

“Felix. My Felix.”

The word interjected between the repetitions of his name was foreign, but the possessive curl of the tone was unmistakable. 

“Felix.”

Felix’s heart hammered as the man dropped to his knees and carefully leaned forward to press his forehead to Felix’s own.

“Felix.”

Felix let out a shuddering breath. 

“Sylvain.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ~~Felix and Dedue canon support? Don't know her.~~  
>  As always, you can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/euphemeas)!


	4. growing together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every grimace, every squirm, every delightfully aggravated tail-flicker—each new mannerism carefully catalogued into memories of sun-kissed days, to be held tight when life inevitably moved on and claimed them for its own. Nothing good would last and friendship was ephemeral; the brook of hope’s temptation would one day run dry and spring and summer would eventually fade to fall, but Sylvain could keep the light of this truth with him to the end.
> 
> Sylvain didn’t know how long he could keep Felix, but he cherished every moment. He’d cling to this happiness for as long as it lasted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been a hot minute since i updated, and i'm sorry! i'll try to get back on this with more regular chapters. 
> 
> you might notice that this is now part of a series! there are some short oneshots set in the universe not directly tied to the main story if you're interested in that! also, please check out [the](https://twitter.com/eggyankee/status/1248445697571127297) [art](https://twitter.com/tango_roo/status/1226965471917940739) this fic has gotten since the last update!
> 
> thanks once more to [elliot](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scatteringmyashes) for the beta!

“It’s you!” Sylvain cried as he held his merman in a crushing hug, “It’s you, it’s you, it’s really you!”

This had to be him—had to be the fish-tailed child Sylvain had once met all those long years ago, just _had_ to. Yeah, sure, human memory could be faulty, a lot of years had passed, and Sylvain couldn’t claim to have perfect recall, so who knew? Maybe all merpeople looked the same and Sylvain’s mind was playing tricks on him. But with every fiber of his sordid being, he was sure: this merman and the child who had saved him all those years ago were one and the same.

(The merman had to be, or Sylvain would once again be set adrift amidst empty waves in a fruitless search for the truth, left atop a yawning chasm of knowledge he could only barely peer into.)

The merman wriggled in Sylvain’s arms, his squeaks and clicks agitated as he thrashed against his grip; there was a displeased pinch to his face, his gaze flinty and lips set in a scowl, but his pale skin had taken on a warm, rosy glow, and he seemed more startled than enraged. Sylvain drank in the sight of stark red creeping up the merman’s neck, vibrant and luminescent against its usual porcelain—the glowing hue was the most adorable blush Sylvain had ever seen.

Goddess, his merman was _so cute_. Sylvain wanted to keep him.

_It’s you._

Joy thrummed through Sylvain, hot and sparkling, like the sun had finally shone through ashen clouds after an eon of rain, and he squeezed tighter, irrepressible adoration bleeding into the touch.

All at once, a wet weight smacked the back of Sylvain’s knees, and they buckled below him—down he went, arms flailing reflexively, his grasp on the merman dissolved in his momentary disorientation. His hands met sea and sand, and he landed in an unceremonious pile. Falling prey to instinct was an immediately regrettable mistake; in Sylvain’s fleeting distraction, the merman had thrown himself back into the water.

Sylvain pushed himself to his feet, intent on following his new-old friend before he could flee, and held out his hand before him. Though radiating irritation, the merman returned, reproachful and wary, as he clicked inscrutable words. Sylvain ignored the warning and grabbed the merman’s hand, anchoring them together; he wasn’t sure what he’d have done if he’d had to chase the merman further into the water, and he was glad to avoid taking any chances.

And Sylvain _still_ hadn’t gotten the merman’s name (assuming he had one).

“Sylvain,” he said, pointing at himself.

The merman blinked and bared his teeth.

“ _Sylvain_ ,” he repeated, more insistent.

“Si… Sylvain?” The merman tested the word.

“Yeah, Sylvain.” Sylvain nodded, eager, and earned an unforeseen, dirty glare. But he had to press on. He turned his hand to the merman. “And yours? I mean. Sorry.” He took a breath. “What’s your name?”

The merman blinked. Sharp, amber eyes narrowed to focus on the tip of his finger, and Sylvain had the strange premonition that he was about to be bitten.

“Your name?” Sylvain said again, careful. The merman couldn’t understand his words, but perhaps he could understand the meaning of his tone.

A quiet beat passed and the merman inhaled, a sharp, abrupt sound. His eyes widened and he flushed again, ugly and blotchy and so, _so_ adorable. Had he gotten through? Sylvain could only assume so.

The short stream of clicks and syllables the merman threw was far too fast for Sylvain to catch the full intonation, but he committed it to memory anyway. This was his merman’s name. He would have to learn how to speak it, the sooner the better.

Sylvain attempted to repeat the sounds back, stuttering over the clicks—his tongue refused to cooperate, heavy and unwieldy as it tapped against the backs of his teeth and pressed against the roof of his mouth. If he’d ever thought that Fódlan’s tongue was challenging of human languages, the mer language was another beast altogether.

The merman winced.

Sylvain opened his mouth to try again, but the merman cut him off. “ _Fe-lix_.”

Sylvain’s heart swelled. Two syllables, no chirps or trills. He could do this. “Fe. Lix.” That sounded right. That _felt_ right. “Felix.”

Felix’s eyes were wide as they stared into Sylvain’s.

Feeling bold, he took Felix’s other hand and pulled them closer. “Felix. My Felix.” He was _perfect_. Sylvain’s perfect merman with a perfect name, here and home and real—so tangibly, amazingly real.

“Felix.” Sylvain didn’t think he’d ever stop repeating it. He dropped to his knees, one at a time, letting the water rise to his chest—for once neither discomfiting nor frightening—and leaned his head down to press his forehead to Felix’s. “Felix.”

Felix’s shudder reverberated through Sylvain, and his heart echoed its sympathy.

“Sylvain.”

_Felix._

Sylvain closed his eyes.

_It’s you._

* * *

_Dear Sylvain,_

_I hope this letter finds you well! I’m sure you’ve been busy, but next time, please reply to me directly so that Mercedes need not travel across the city to deliver a message for you. She mentioned something concerning about you saying you found a fish? I hope this isn’t another story about one of your conquests. I really, and I cannot stress this enough, have no desire to hear about how lovely some poor girl’s breasts are or the way her dress accents her rear._

_Anyway, to the point of why I’m writing to you. Lonato has approved my trip to Gautier, so I’ll be seeing you soon. We’re still planning on arriving on the date we discussed before, the 2nd of the Verdant Rain Moon. Three months from today. It makes you think, doesn’t it? It really has been almost two years since I was last in town. I wonder how many people remember me, if they do at all. I suppose not being remembered is probably for the better._

_Unlike what we originally planned, I won’t be bringing Emma and Arthur. They seem to be back to full health now, but I don’t think we’re going to risk making them travel yet, so they’re staying behind. Of course, they send you their love. Christophe says to send along his loathing and an invitation for you to come back to the capital to play chess with him. And this game from Dagda that’s apparently in fashion. Go, I think it’s called? Christophe swears you’ll like it._

_In the meantime, please keep out of trouble. I refuse to beg again, but here I am, begging you for this. I would greatly appreciate it if this visit doesn’t require me bailing you out of trouble with the townspeople. I’d like to spend some time with my childhood friend while I’m there, not chase you down for whatever nonsense you’ve accomplished over the last two years. Just because town can be a little on the dull side does not mean you have to “make your own fun” if it might be detrimental to others._

_You have the potential to be a good man and a good lord, Sylvain. Please stop trying to prove me wrong._

_Tiredly wishing you the best,_

_Ashe_

Sylvain let out a wry chuckle as he set down the page in his hands, his fingers tracing Ashe’s rough, careless creases; the messy, imprecise folds had never changed over the many years of their correspondence, not from the moment they began hiding notes to each other in the gaps of the bookkeeper’s fence as a way for Ashe to practice his reading and writing, and not now that he was a noble son fluent in his own words and avidly reading his way into any knight’s tale he could get his hands on.

Some memories stayed constant, quirks and idiosyncrasies the same as they had ever been—quaint and comforting even as time progressed and left fleeting minutes and seconds of happiness behind. In just under three months time, Sylvain would get to experience that childhood nostalgia once more.

Sylvain couldn’t wait to finally get to see his oldest friend again.

* * *

Sylvain stared out over the water, anticipation and agitation echoing raucously in his veins as he searched the waves for midnight blue rising from its depth. Like so many other afternoons, he’d found his way to his beach (their beach) and relaxed, letting the wash of waves and cries of gulls echo calm him. Sitting, watching, listening—he’d added waiting to his repertoire, daylight passing and dying as he wondered if or when Felix might appear.

Sylvain had returned to the beach as often as he could, all too willing to abandon the listless life of a lordling for countless hours spent watching water, fragile patience pulled taut as it refused to yield the object of his fascination. It wasn’t like he had anything he’d rather do—his usual dalliances had lost their luster, the soft skin and sweet scent of girls paling next to the draw of Felix’s ethereal beauty.

Felix. _Felix_. Sylvain was sure he’d never heard a more flawless word—he was certain there had never been a more perfect series of sounds. He had to have thought or said or hummed it at least a hundred times every day since he’d first learned it, nearly two months prior.

The sand was soft below him as he swirled idle shapes into its surface; if he squinted, he could almost say the drawing looked like a merman. A rather poor rendition, art not even worthy of a child’s pen, but an accurate reflection of the fixation that had gripped Sylvain’s mind—unyielding and unrelenting, the mirage of an existence without obligation, a hand free of fate.

He hummed in time with the ebb of the tide, an old sea shanty murmured by the sailors at the docks as they readied themselves for another day and another journey to faraway lands—lands that Sylvain could never, _would_ never see. The sun’s warmth and the stillness of the air beckoned him to flop boneless onto the sand and nap, to fall into the calming lull of distant birdsong and the rush of water—but he would not cave to temptation lest he sleep through a chance to see Felix.

The merman kept an odd schedule, appearing at irregular intervals—sometimes Felix would visit on consecutive days, sometimes Sylvain would retreat home with nothing to show for his time but sand in his shoes and an aching, disappointed heart. It had been five days since Sylvain had last seen Felix (three since the last time he had been able to go to their beach), and the merman’s absence chafed. The question of when Sylvain would see Felix again was always at the back of his mind, buzzing, as he dutifully completed his daily record-keeping and discussed trade with the latest merchants to arrive into port. Even wildly regaled tales of foreign nations did little to keep his attention; Almyran goods and Srengi finery had once been the highlights to Sylvain’s droll life, but no dyed wool or wrought silver stood a chance next to precious hours spent reveling in irritable trills and snarky clicks.

Though, those intonations became rarer with every passing visit—Felix had insisted on learning to speak Common Fódla, making leaps and bounds in progress as he navigated the strange intricacies of the human tongue, always pleased with his progress as Sylvain showered him in praise.

For his part, Sylvain had slowly begun to pick apart Felix’s own speech, grabbing at words and patterns, none of them with any proficiency in pronunciation. And as embarrassing as his difficulty with the language was, he wasn’t sure if mastering it was actually worth it; there was nothing more charming than the angry scrunch of Felix’s nose as Sylvain stumbled over endless, intricate intonation. Learning the words themselves was more an enjoyable pastime than anything else; he could usually guess Felix’s meaning from his face alone. Felix was, after all, the most infinitely endearing and expressive individual (human or otherwise) Sylvain had ever met.

Every grimace, every squirm, every delightfully aggravated tail-flicker—each new mannerism carefully catalogued into memories of sun-kissed days, to be held tight when life inevitably moved on and claimed them for its own. Nothing good would last and friendship was ephemeral; the brook of hope’s temptation would one day run dry and spring and summer would eventually fade to fall, but Sylvain could keep the light of this truth with him to the end.

Sylvain didn’t know how long he could keep Felix, but he cherished every moment. He’d cling to this happiness for as long as it lasted.

A faint splash sounded to Sylvain’s left, cutting through his maudlin daydreaming, and he blinked. Just beyond the depth where he could comfortably reach, Felix stared at him, tail fluttering to bely his stony gaze. Sylvain grinned and waved, and the merman let out an aggravated huff before diving and making his way to the beach.

Felix surfaced again in the shallows, hand demandingly outstretched. Sylvain took it and pulled.

Despite his lithe build, the merman was surprisingly sturdy; his body was made of pure muscle, its strength reinforced to steel by his dour attitude. Felix’s nails dug into the back of Sylvain’s hand as he helped the merman fully seat himself on the sand, pinprick reminders of a euphoric dream turned reality. Once Felix was fully out of the water, Sylvain dropped back to the sand beside him, his smile easy as he covered Felix’s cold hand with his own.

“How are you?”

Felix shrugged, his shoulder jerking as he replied in the rapid staccato notes of mer language (what Sylvain had taken to calling “Mermish” in his head). He heard “father” and “Ingrid” and “annoying” somewhere in there, but the rest remained incomprehensible. Sylvain’s thumb doodled aimless patterns into the back of Felix’s hand as he half-listened, content to let the sound of Felix’s voice wash over him.

Felix paused and squinted, scrutinizing, at Sylvain.

Sylvain put his hands up. He hadn’t done anything wrong. At least, he was pretty sure he hadn’t—he usually knew when he was in the wrong, but he had a propensity for pissing people off, so honestly, he couldn’t rule out having angered Felix.

Felix frowned and spoke again, this time in carefully measured Common Fódla. “It is okay. Ingrid and father are—hmm, how to say. They say do not go to surface. They say to stay, help Dimitri. They ask questions.”

Felix’s progress with human speech was staggering—some of his consonants still came out a little harder than needed and he stumbled over the occasional vowel intonation, but his vocabulary and pronunciation improved with every visit.

“Are they worried?”

“Worried. Worried?” Felix’s eyebrows drew together in confusion. “I do not know ‘worried’.”

“Concerned? It’s like—when you feel nervous about something. Like you think something bad is going to happen.” Felix blinked, uncomprehending. Sylvain floundered for a similar word in Mermish, but came up empty-handed. “Like… like when you cannot find something important to you.”

“Worried.” Felix tasted the word again. “Maybe. They are worried? But annoying.”

Sylvain stroked his thumb against the back of Felix’s hand. “Yeah, I get that.”

“Get that?”

Sylvain bit back a grin. “Never mind.”

Felix scowled at him, lips tight and eyes narrowed, his posture wound tight like a feral jungle cat aiming for the jugular; the merman had a million different ways to show his displeasure, and Sylvain loved every single one. This was a favorite: raw and bright in Felix’s irritation, at once both cold and scorching—but particularly noteworthy for the way it always melted into something softer and more careful.

Sylvain stared, unabashed, drinking in the way the attention heated Felix’s cheeks and the warmth spread down his chest and to his shoulders. Felix did not, objectively, have the most elegant or delicate blush. That didn’t stop the flush from being the most radiant and flattering color Sylvain had ever seen; the high pink made him come alive in vibrant tones, complementing the endless blues around them that melded together to call Felix home.

Eventually, he broke eye contact, muttering under his breath in Mermish. Something about “moron” and “asshole” and “stop”. Sylvain tightened his grip on Felix’s hand and felt the merman tense. After another long beat, Felix let out a small snort and relaxed, twisting his grip so that their hands were palm to palm, and squeezed back.

Sylvain’s pulse quickened and he bit the inside of his cheek, forcing down the urge to grab Felix into a hug. He’d learned his lesson from the previous two times he’d tried it.

“Whatever,” said Felix, his head turned away as he chanced a glance at Sylvain out of the corner of his eye.

Sylvain chuckled. “Sorry! Sorry for teasing you. It’s way too fun.”

“Tea—sing?”

“Uh.”

Felix’s eyes narrowed and he pulled at where their palms were pressed together, but Sylvain was ready. He caught Felix before he could escape, threading their fingers together instead.

“Nuh-uh, you’re not going anywhere,” Sylvain said with a smirk.

Felix tsked and looked away, but made no move to extract himself from Sylvain’s grip.

Sylvain brought Felix’s hand to his lips and pressed a chaste kiss against its back. Even after having been warmed by the sun for some time, Felix’s skin was cool to the touch—sharp and demanding like the thawing breeze at the end of winter, smooth and pale in the balmy afternoon air, the white of a distant moon falling all at once into Sylvain’s orbit.

Sylvain let out a quiet sigh. “I’m glad you’re here, even with whatever you’ve got going on down there at home.”

_I’m so glad you’re real._

Felix clicked his tongue once more, the corners of his lips curling infinitesimally upward, and he shifted to lean his shoulder into Sylvain’s.

* * *

Life at home never changed, and its ritual was the source of an endless well of exhaustion, so different from the blossoming hope of Ashe’s impending visit or the myriad of vibrant colors inspired by Felix’s sudden entrance into his life.

Sylvain thumbed against worn pages, folding and unfolding the dog-eared corners, his eyes sliding over faded words. Fantastic tales of magical creatures, speculation of their daily lives, records of dubious encounters—he could recite them by heart.

Today’s stack of records sat beside him, their pages trite and meandering, half-examined and abandoned—Sylvain had dawdled as he avoided his work. He flipped another well-loved page and snorted at the newly-revealed page, a rough sketch subtitled “woman-fish.” The inaccuracies of the sailor’s scratched doodle were almost laughable (her human hands and ears, her rosy skin and even rosier, buxom breasts—the product of some fever dream rather than an observation of the eye), but his fingers still traced the ink with wandering remembrance. These words and lines had carried him through childhood.

Three heavy, pounding knocks rang out against Sylvain’s door and he flinched. He knew that greeting. Only his father ever wielded formality like it was a weapon.

“Yes?” Sylvain called, shoving the book of sailors’ stories back under his paperwork.

The door clicked open and swung forcefully inward, threatening to be torn from its hinges by the storm of his father’s anger. Constantine scowled down at Sylvain as he stalked in, perennial complaints of time-wasting and laziness and the duties of a future Lord undoubtedly dancing at the tip of his tongue. Sylvain could repeat the lectures by heart.

“Boy.”

Sylvain bit his lip to keep from rolling his eyes. Commanding and condescending though Constantine might be, his chosen epithets had long lost their power, and it was laughable that Sylvain’s father thought he would still quail at being called “boy”, now twenty-three years old.

“Can I help you with something, father?” Sylvain plastered on his best, most insincere smile as he dropped his chin to a hand.

Constantine’s eyes narrowed. “Stand up! You will show me respect when I speak to you.”

“Yes, yes, of course.” Sylvain pushed himself to his feet, reluctant in his duty but cowing all the same.

“Yes, _what_.”

Sylvain clenched his fists. “Yes, _father_.”

Constantine’s eyes narrowed. “Hmph. Tell me, boy, why are my stewards saying that you can’t be found some afternoons when you’re expected to be ensuring that all imports and exports are accounted for? Or when you are meant to be discussing new prospects for inventions from overseas and determining their value?”

“I don’t know, maybe they’re not looking hard enough.”

“Don’t get cheeky with me.”

“I’m here, working on what I need to. Sometimes I take a little stroll. Stretch my legs, you know.”

Constantine sneered. “I’m sure you’re doing your best out there to sully the family name, cavorting with low women and ruffians. It is unbefitting—”

“—of a lord to be seen with ‘lesser’ folk,” Sylvain repeated in concert, voice drenched in sarcasm. “So you’ve said. Many times.”

Constantine drew himself to his full height—barely taller than Sylvain, his eyes glaring slightly down—and barreled ahead. “And you would do well to remember it! I am not yet near death, boy, but one day you _will_ be responsible for the prosperity of this port.”

As if Sylvain wasn’t already saddled with more than his share of his father’s duties.

“This town relies on this family for its management and wealth, and you _must_ be ready when that task falls to you. We have kept this port flourishing for six generations, and I will _not_ have both sons play me for a fool and besmirch that legacy!”

Sylvain scoffed. “Right. Legacy,” he muttered.

“We have remained in good standing with the crown through that time through the efforts of every Gautier since this port was founded, and your lackadaisical, time-wasting, low-bred _affairs_ will be the end of us all.”

His father had a flair for the dramatic, especially as it pertained to satisfying the faraway emperor in Enbarr, but there was a kernel of truth buried beneath his grandiose, self-righteous anger.

Bookkeeping, tracking of fine wares, regulation of grain stores and supplies—Sylvain knew the tune to dance to, had been trained in the part to play; he could only dream of an understudy rising up to take the lead role thrust upon him when Miklan had been disowned. He was a broken marionette wearing his steps straight through the floor and into the empty cavern of his soul, without a hope of reaching up to sever his strings, no better than the cracked doll of a shattered music box limping through its endless rotations.

“All of the accounting is stable, I don’t know what you want,” Sylvain said, limbs heavy and a headache forming behind his temples. “I think I’m allowed to have a little fun.”

“What I want,” Constantine growled, “is for you to finally grow up and understand your station. It’s a lesson I learned at a far younger age than you. Your pointless time-wasting and shirking of duty cannot last, and you could do far better to become the lord that this port needs. Your ‘fun’ is a waste of resources that could be better spent doing your utmost to help this town flourish.”

He slammed a hand onto Sylvain’s desk.

“No one is going to thank you for keeping the people of this town happy and alive. You must stop expecting that; this is what you are _meant_ to do.”

* * *

Here Sylvain was, once again seeking solace in Felix’s presence, _running away_ from his real present and only future—hiding in paradise to pretend that the rest of the world wouldn’t catch up with him. His daydreams could only last so long, but today, at least did not spell their end.

Felix’s tail was beautiful in the late afternoon light, painted almost indigo in the setting sun’s oblique rays, his irritable presence a cool balm to Sylvain’s aching heart. Felix’s leaps in language and his own faltering, toddling steps quieted his mind’s endless loop of his father’s words, still echoing nearly four days later.

Sylvain threaded a lock of Felix’s hair through the fingers of his left hand, careful to avoid the merman’s eyes. The fingers of his right dug in to Felix’s where they were laced between them.

“Say, Felix,” he began, tone even and nonchalant.

Felix let out an acknowledging grunt.

“How would you feel about meeting one of my friends? Ashe is visiting next week.”

Felix blinked. “You have friends?”

Sylvain’s jaw dropped. “Wha—of course I have friends!”

“I am—I am sorry for them.” Sylvain could see the suggestion of smirk fighting its way onto Felix’s lips.

“Wow, rude. How do I always have the _worst_ friends?” Sylvain complained.

He kicked the merman’s tail in retaliation, mostly a perfunctory press of his foot near Felix’s fin. He did not account for the fact that Felix (though smaller) was far stronger, and prone to turning everything into a fight, and an impact swept under his legs and flipped him, landing him mouth-first into the sand. Felix plopped himself, triumphant, across Sylvain’s back.

“I win again.” Sylvain could hear the smug grin.

“That’s not fair,” he griped, pushing onto his hands and knees. Felix allowed himself to slide forward onto the sand, patting Sylvain’s hand, equal parts condescending and consoling, as he righted himself. “That wasn’t even a match.”

“Everything is fighting.”

“Everything is fighting with _you_.”

Felix poked Sylvain in the ribs. “Weak human.”

“One of these days, I swear, I’m going to beat you.”

“If you say.”

“I swear I will. You won’t see it coming.”

Felix rolled his eyes. “You will not. You will lose more because you cannot swim.”

“Hey, I swim!”

Felix squinted at him, skeptical, and snorted as his gaze landed on Sylvain’s sand-covered feet. “What you call swimming is worse than little ones. Your fins are bad.”

“I do swim,” Sylvain protested. “I’m good at—well, okay, I _used_ to be really good at it.”

“Hmm.”

The disbelief in Felix’s voice stung, and the dumbest, most petty part of Sylvain’s heart surged with the temptation to fling himself into the water to prove Felix wrong, no matter how the rest of him might scream in protest.

“I’ll show you. One day.”

“There is no need to lie,” Felix said, half-amused. “If you want to swim, I can teach.”

“I _know_ how to swim!”

“Yes, yes. I will believe when you can show me.” Felix slid his hand into Sylvain’s, thumb stroking idle circles against the back of Sylvain’s hand, a pacifying mimicry recalling every time Sylvain had been the one to entwine their hands.

Sylvain curled into the touch, the pout on his lips melting in drips to fondness.

Felix tutted, his eyes fixed over the water. “Then. Tell me about your friend.”

“What do you want to know?” Sylvain laughed. “Where do you want me to start?”

“At the beginning,” Felix said, free of irony.

“The beginning…?” That hadn’t been what Sylvain meant, but he supposed he couldn’t fault Felix for his response. The beginning was, after all, where all things started.

Felix scowled, switching to Mermish. “Was there something wrong with what I said?”

“Nope, nothing!” Sylvain shook his head, squeezing Felix’s hand, before turning and gazing over the water at the horizon. The sun had started to fall, and the sky shimmered with the first tinges of sunset. “Ashe and I met when I was thirteen and he was ten…”

* * *

The sky hung above, overcast, an irritating mirror to Sylvain’s own anxious mood.

Today was the day.

After two wretched, isolated years, he’d finally get the chance to see Ashe again. Sylvain had been counting the days from the moment Ashe had first proposed a visit to Gautier, whittling down the months and weeks until only minutes and hours remained.

It didn’t hurt that Ashe’s visit gave him an excuse to stay out of the manor—reasoning that even Sylvain’s father couldn’t refute. Constantine knew all about the imperative of playing nice with Enbarr nobility, even if Ashe was “only” Lord Gaspard’s adopted second son.

Sylvain stood outside the manor’s front entrance, fingers tapping agitatedly against his crossed arms, as a carriage bearing a familiar flag finally came into view. The vehicle was a simple coach, decorated with sparse streaks of robin’s egg blue and without unnecessary ornament, but well-maintained and pulled by a pair of capable black stallions. The horses whickered and clopped quietly to a standstill at their master’s bidding, patient and unflappable as Gautier servants swarmed them to unload the passengers and their belongings.

The driver hopped from his seat and pulled the door to the coach open with a bow, his mouth simpering in barely-audible words to “Young Master Gaspard” as he darted into place. Ashe—taller than Sylvain remembered, and maybe a little broader—emerged with hands raised and sheepish smile firmly in place, aiming (and missing) once again to swear that his title was unnecessary and that the man owed him no such servility. It seemed the years hadn’t changed _that_ in Sylvain’s oldest friend—he’d grown from humble roots to too-humble adopted nobleman, a warm spirit with gentle words for all (even those, like Sylvain, whose merit was questionable). Ashe’s humility was both his greatest flaw and his greatest strength.

Sylvain could only dream of being that unassuming and kind-hearted.

The man bowed deeper and Sylvain could see Ashe’s shoulders drop, defeated by deference, as he nodded and turned toward the main house.

“Sylvain!” Ashe smiled, raising his hand in greeting.

Sylvain raised his own in response. “Hey, Ashe!”

“It’s so good to finally see you again!” Ashe laughed and turned over his shoulder to gaze at smoke trails winding into the air in the distance. “I never thought I’d miss this place, but memory has the strangest way of making everything rosy. Enbarr’s so far from the sea, and the city can be quite rowdy… It’s peaceful here.”

Sylvain snorted lightly. “Peaceful’s one way to put it.”

“Oh, don’t start on that again. I know things aren’t perfect in Gautier, but there’s a bright side to everything, if you only look for it.” Ashe frowned as he turned back. “Let’s try to enjoy ourselves for the next two weeks, alright?”

“Sure, sure. You’re here for me to show you a good time.”

Ashe fixed him with a look and sighed, but kept otherwise silent. Maybe he wasn’t quite the same boy Sylvain had known. The younger Ashe would have chided him, voice trembling, about saying improper things unbefitting of his station as the future lord—wary but capitulating, afraid of speaking above his “station.”

Sylvain opened his arms, casual and expectant, and chuckled as Ashe walked into the hug.

“It’s good to see you, buddy.” Sylvain said, muffled against Ashe’s hair where he once would have spoken over his head.

Once scrawny and dressed in rags, Ashe now stood well-fed and well-adorned in Sylvain’s arms. The years had been kind to _him_ , at least—Sylvain had been trapped, locked away in Gautier, unable to see his friend grow, unable to truly grow himself. His arms tightened around Ashe’s shoulders, momentarily grasping and desperate, but he forced himself to loosen his hold before the distantly familiar affection could become something he would once more crave.

“Yeah.” Ashe patted Sylvain’s back. “Yeah, I missed you too.”

Ashe’s words rang with a melancholic note broaching on tenderness and something heavy flipped in Sylvain’s stomach. He pulled back and dropped his arms again, abrupt and awkward, and he felt the burned edges of an apprehensive smile rise. “Nah, don’t worry about little ol’ me. You should be enjoying your big city life!”

Ashe blinked. “Of course I worry about you. We all do—me, Annette, Mercedes… Emma, Arthur, too. Even Christophe. You’re our friend, Sylvain, even if you get yourself into trouble more often than not.”

Sylvain froze, a jolt of uneasy pleasure spiking in his veins. It was a nice sentiment. It was a _really_ nice sentiment, to have his friends care for him, even from far away. But that’s all it was—pure sentiment, without any basis in reality, unable to weather the storm of the iron-fisted force of Sylvain’s high-born fate carrying him ceaselessly forward through life.

Sylvain cleared his throat, intent on diffusing the strange melancholy of the moment, and grinned. “Speaking of trouble…”

Ashe flinched.

“No, no—I promise, it’s nothing bad. Have a little faith! I’m not gonna steer you wrong.”

Ashe gave Sylvain a look.

Okay. So perhaps Sylvain _had_ steered Ashe wrong once or twice in the past, minor youthful indiscretions, but he wouldn’t today. “What do you say we take a little walk after lunch?”

Ashe heaved a sigh. “This really better not be about one of your conquests…”

Sylvain slung an arm back across Ashe’s shoulders. “Ashe, buddy, you wound me. I promise you, you’re gonna have so much fun.”

* * *

The jaunt down to the beach had been quick and uneventful, filled only with Ashe’s hurtful, distrustful commentary. _Yes_ , Sylvain knew where he was leading them, and _no_ , he wasn’t playing a trick on Ashe, and _no_ , he wasn’t going to get them in any trouble.

Sylvain breathed deeply, basking in the strong, briny scent of warming, summer sea—cool, crisp, tinged with the sweltering heat of air and foliage in full bloom. The clouds had cleared from the morning, slightly, and speckled hints of sunlight dotted against the water’s surface.

“He’ll be here soon, probably. I told him you were visiting. Or he might not. It’s a little hard to know sometimes,” Sylvain rambled as his eyes dragged across the expanse of open water, darting from wave to wave in search of the faintest hint of midnight blue.

He heard the crunching steps of shoe meeting sand and felt a firm grip on his shoulder before he was turned and the back of a hand pressed itself against his forehead.

“Hmm, no fever…”

“Hey, I’m perfectly sane!” Sylvain swatted Ashe’s hand away and resumed his search.

Ashe followed Sylvain’s gaze but said nothing, his doubt radiating heavy and concerned, possibly half-convinced that Sylvain would do something rash and try to dive into unyielding waves. He hadn’t done that since Felix’s second visit, thank you.

Ashe shook his head. “Where are we?”

“We’re at the beach!”

“Yes, Sylvain, I can see—,” Ashe shook his head. “What I meant was, _why_ did you bring me to the beach? You don’t swim.”

“Hey,” Sylain said, playing up the affront, “I know how to swim!”

“Really? I could have sworn you’d said that you didn’t know how at some point…”

“Please, I’m a Gautier,” Sylvain scoffed. “Of course I know how to swim.”

“Hmm.”

“I just don’t _like_ to swim.”

Ashe gave Sylvain a pitying look. “If that’s what you want to call it.”

Sylvain stepped out onto the sand, intent on ignoring the tired look he could feel Ashe blazing into his back. “Anyway, we’re not here to swim. There’s someone I want you to meet.”

“On the beach?”

Sylvain clapped a hand to his chest. “Oh, ye of little faith.”

“Why would you want to meet here? We walked a good ten minutes off the path where we left your horses.”

“Yeah, they’re used to it. They know to come when I whistle now.”

Ashe sighed behind Sylvain. “Well, it’s a warm enough day for the walk back for when they do leave us. We’re not that far from the manor and town.”

“Oh, they’ll be fine. They’ve done this before. Live a little, Ashe! You’re here to have fun.” Sylvain paused, wincing, and shrugged a shoulder. “Well, as much fun as you can get out in Gautier.”

“I’m also here to look into the trade routes with the capital and check up on the management of Srengi imports.”

Sylvain sighed, turning back to drop his arm heavily across Ashe’s shoulders and pull them both to sit in the sand. “Don’t go letting all the formality training get to you, bud. It’ll be fine even if you relax a bit.”

Ashe shrugged off Sylvain with a good-natured shake of his head. “Easy for you to say,” he said. “I’ll never know how you’re so good with numbers. I can’t seem to get my mind around them.”

“They’re not so bad. You just gotta look for patterns, right? There’s only a few rules, and then the rest is using them.”

Ashe huffed, self-deprecating smirk twisting his lips. “You say that, but I never seem to get any better with maths, even after Annette and Christophe’s tutoring.”

Sylvain shrugged. “Then you just have to find the right people to help do it for you. Part of being a lord’s learning how to delegate. And, I mean, don’t give up, you know? You’re a real hard-working guy, you’ll get there one day.”

Ashe blinked, mouth slightly agape. After a long beat, he let out a quiet chuckle and flopped back against the sand. “Sometimes you really surprise me, Sylvain.” He landed a soft punch against Sylvain’s thigh. “Thank you. I guess even you can give good advice every once in a while.”

“What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

Ashe laughed, earnest and open, as Sylvain stared down at him, half-tempted to poke at his unprotected midriff. He likely wasn’t as ticklish anymore, but leaving himself wide open was as unwise now as it had been eight years ago.

A loud splash sounded to Sylvain’s left and he paused, hand half-poised above Ashe’s ribs, head turned reflexively to the sound.

Felix stared at him, lips quirked in that way that Sylvain had come to learn meant that he thought Sylvain was being stupid and exasperating.

“Felix!” Sylvain could feel the smile tugging the corners of his lips, delirious and giddy, his hand changing course to beckon to the merman instead. “You came!”

Felix rolled his eyes. “Of course. Moron. Help me.”

Sylvain pushed himself back to his feet and made his way to the water’s edge, hand outstretched, automatic grin rising as he met Felix’s eyes. Behind him, he heard a rustling as Ashe propped himself on his elbows and gaped, soundless, at Felix. Felix took the hand and let himself be pulled onto the sand, his nails digging intentionally harder into the flesh of Sylvain’s hand than usual.

“You ignored me.”

Sylvain dropped into the sand beside Felix. “I didn’t see you!”

“Hmph. You should pay more attention to your surroundings.”

Sylvain groaned. “Is this going to be another lecture on awareness and fighting? I’ve told you, Felix, I don’t need that.”

Felix frowned. “You do. If you cannot see what is happening yet, you need to learn.”

“Oh, and you have perfect awareness?” Sylvain asked, arm darting out to hook around Felix’s waist, pulling the merman into him. Felix jolted at the sudden touch, eyes wide, but he did not make a sound. Pity. Sylvain needed new ways to surprise him.

“Let go—!”

“Nope,” Sylvain hummed, tugging Felix even closer so that merman was halfway in his lap. He was vaguely aware that Ashe was still somewhere behind them, but as always, his attention had snapped to Felix and he couldn’t be bothered to direct it elsewhere. “I like this better.”

“Stop trying to kill me—”

Sylvain raised his eyebrows. “Are you on that again?”

“You tried to strangle me when we met!”

“I did not! It’s called a _hug_ , and you’ve made me apologize for that every time.”

“I know what a hug is. That is not a hug, that is attempted murder.”

Sylvain’s spare hand rose to tilt the merman’s chin up to let their eyes meet, and he hovered, their faces only a breath apart. Felix’s grin matched the one stretching his own lips, feral and gleeful. “Oh, is that so? I’ll show you attempted murder—”

A quiet, uncomfortable cough sounded behind Sylvain and he jumped, dropping his arms from around Felix. Felix, too, flinched, and he sank back into the sand beside Sylvain.

“U-um! Excuse me,” said Ashe, voice soft and wary, “Are you… human…? Is this some kind of elaborate prank that Sylvain came up with?”

Felix blinked. “Prank?”

“Oh! Uh, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. It’s just—your… tail?”

Felix flicked his fin once, slapping it once against the beach and showering Sylvain in sand. “What about my tail?”

Ashe’s eyes bulged briefly as he watched the movement. “It’s real…? That’s not some kind of costume?”

Sylvain made an affronted noise. “Why would Felix have a costume?”

“Fe…lix…?”

“Hello,” Felix said, dry and amused. “I am Felix.”

“O-oh, pleased to make your acquaintance! I’m Ashe. I don’t know if Sylvain told you anything about me…?” Ashe extended a tentative hand. Felix stared at it for a long moment before reaching back with his own and accepting the handshake.

Felix blinked. “He did. I expected you to be… small.”

Ashe shot Sylvain a brief glare.

Sylvain choked, his hand rising to cover his laugh. “In my defense, Ashe _was_ shorter the last time I saw him.”

Felix flicked him with his tail. “You think everyone is small. You are too big.”

Sylvain hummed.

“A-anyway. Felix, right?” Felix nodded. “Did he say anything else?”

“He said you are a good friend. You work hard. You have… a little brother and sister?”

“Oh, yes! Emma and Arthur. There’s Christophe, too, but he’s older. And not technically related—Chris’s father adopted us five years ago.”

Felix gave a single curt nod. “I had a brother, older. He is dead.”

Ashe winced. “I-I’m very sorry for your loss.”

“Why? You did not know him.”

“I just—I mean…”

“I had a brother, too,” Sylvain said, interrupting. “But Miklan was a right old bastard. Don’t know where he is now.”

“He really did cause so much trouble…” said Ashe, grimacing.

“Yeah, good riddance.”

Felix frowned, brows pinching, but remained silent. Sylvain patted his tail. “Don’t worry about Miklan, you don’t need to know about him, he’s long gone and he won’t be coming back.”

Ashe turned back to Felix. “So, Felix, tell me about yourself? How did you meet Sylvain? Who are you? And, uh, _what_ —well, never mind.”

“What is there to say? I am Felix, House Fraldarius. I like swords.”

“You like swords?”

“Yeah,” Sylvain cut in, “he’s apparently got a whole cave of them. He brought one once… Good steel, a little rusty, possibly Almryan-made from the etching on the blade and the grip.”

“Oh! Are these… are they human swords?”

“I collect them,” Felix said, pride flaring in his voice.

“From shipwrecks,” Sylvain stage-whispered.

Felix slapped him with his tail, quick and light, and shot him a glare. “Yes. There are not many good ones, but I like human swords.”

“Ah… That’s… nice?” Ashe said, grasping for words. “I’m not one for foreign weapons and I’m not too familiar with swords, but I’m decent at archery, myself!”

“Arch… ry?” Felix repeated.

“Oh, um, they’re these human weapons used to shoot things over long ranges… It’s done for sport too, to hunt things or as a competition. I’m not the best, but I like the focus of it.”

“Don’t listen to him,” said Sylvain. “He’s way better than he gives himself credit.”

Ashe shook his head at the praise. “Your flattery isn’t going to work on me, Sylvain.”

“I’m being honest!”

Felix rolled his eyes. “You like to praise.”

“Oh, like you don’t like hearing it.”

Felix huffed. “I did not say that.”

“Besides, it’s earned. Your progress with Common Fódla is honestly incredible.” Sylvain turned to Ashe, voice boasting as he gestured at Felix. “Would you believe he’s only been learning the language for a little less than three months?”

“Really?” Ashe said, voice coloring with surprise. “I thought, um. I thought your speech was a little strange? Like some of the foreigners I’ve met.” He paused, earning a stare from Felix. He rushed on. “But you speak well enough that there’s no way I could have guessed that you’ve only been learning for a few months. It’s generally regarded as one of the more difficult languages to learn, behind Dagdan.”

Felix shrugged, noncommittal. “I am learning. Sylvain is not worst at teaching.”

“Oh! Well, you’re learning very well. And I’m… Hmm, actually, I’m not that surprised to hear that Sylvain’s not a bad teacher, he’s pretty good when he sets his mind to something, he just never tries.”

“Hey…” Sylvain said.

Felix hummed in agreement. “Not bad at teaching, but he is a lazy student. His mer-tongue is very bad, he speaks wrong all the time.” Felix turned to give Sylvain a challenging glare, a dare for him to contradict the claim that his Mermish pronunciation was atrocious.

Sylvain winced. Whether in Common Fódla, in Mermish, or in silence, he understood Felix almost instinctively; he’d never needed to fuss about the intricacies of either language to get by. Talking to Felix was like waking a limb that had fallen asleep: prickly and irritable at first meeting, but quickly soothed, the arm or leg rapidly falling into harmony with the rest of the body; their tangled mess of terminology and touches turned to hearts beating in harmony, a language all their own.

Unfortunately, learning to speak Felix’s language himself was another beast altogether—the intonation of the language’s clicks and trills still stuttered at the tip of Sylvain’s tongue and he fought the shape of the words at every turn.

“I’m trying,” Sylvain said weakly. “It’s not my fault I’ve never tried to speak a language like yours before.”

“You can try harder,” Felix retorted. “You are barely practicing.”

Sylvain scooted closer and wrapped an arm around Felix’s waist. “Well, I guess that means you’ll have to visit more, because who else am I going to practice with?”

Felix tsked. “If you promise to try harder.”

Sylvain gaped at him, certain his ears were playing tricks on him. Felix couldn’t possibly have just agreed to see him more.

Felix turned his head away, faint pink creeping up his neck, and clicked his tongue again. “Do not stare.”

Quiet laughter cut in, and Felix’s head turned sharply toward the sound. “What is funny?”

“Nothing, nothing,” Ashe said, still laughing. “I’m just thinking, you’re good for him. I’ve never seen Sylvain this flustered before.”

“Wha—”

Ashe continued. “He always pretends to be carefree, like nothing can bother him, or he acts like he’s not paying attention. But he pays attention to you.”

“I know,” Felix said, flushing further. “He stares too much. Idiot.”

Sylvain flopped dramatically against the sand. “I cannot believe that you two only _just_ met and now you’re teaming up to bully me.”

Felix peered over him, grin wide, eyes sparkling with mirth. “You deserve it.”

Sylvain squinted up at Felix—face haloed by the sun above, engulfing his field of vision—and shrugged. “I guess.”

Confusion flickered over Felix’s expression, set off-kilter by Sylvain’s sudden acceptance. Sensing a question he had no desire to answer, Sylvain grabbed Felix’s arm and hauled the merman into his chest. Felix’s uncertainty vanished, in an instant replaced by irritation, and this time, he squeaked (the cute, surprised one).

Sylvain grinned, triumphant. A successful distraction, and he’d managed to find his arms full of fussy, blushing Felix.

Pausing only for a single breath, Felix growled and launched into a tirade berating Sylvain in Mermish. Sylvain laughed, full-bellied, at the claim that he was “a dumbass, a moron, an insufferable, clingy asshole,” and brought a hand up to cup the back of Felix’s head and pull him closer.

“Still think this is attempted murder?” Sylvain asked, breathing into Felix’s ear. His eyes trailed along the plains of pink and red painting Felix’s cheeks and neck.

Felix smacked him, square on the solar plexus. “Yes, asshole, let me _go_.”

“And…” Ashe said, voice fond as it cut into their roughhousing. “I know we only met today, Felix, but I think he might be good for you too.”

Sylvain felt more than heard the affronted growl that crawled its way out of Felix’s throat, and he tightened the hug, the rumble of his guffaws reverberating through both of them. After a few final, defiant wriggles, Felix relaxed with a final smack of his tail against Sylvain’s legs, grumbling as he dropped his head onto Sylvain’s shoulder.

“Dumbass, both of you.”

* * *

Time flitted by, a rapid stream, its sands slipping away into oblivion, and before Sylvain knew it, Ashe’s stay was already approaching its conclusion.

The week since Ashe’s arrival had been a success, both in warding off his parents attention and in reconnecting with his old friend. Ever sleepy, ever slow, Gautier had not changed in the years since Ashe’s departure, and Ashe’s presence did little to enliven the droll nature of the townspeople, but Sylvain had forgotten the simple joy that being with a friend could bring. The pure pleasures of listening to Ashe recount his favorite new novels, of talking to Ashe into the board games he hated, of splitting tarts fresh from the manor’s kitchen. It was his own life, but with a rosy hue painted over it, and for once not only in the hours he could sneak at his and Felix’s beach.

As Sylvain had hoped, his parents dared not publicly berate him for his “behavior” while another noble was visiting, and he took refuge in Ashe’s valiant attempts at conversation with Constantine and Emmeline, content to let his friend wrestle with barbed questions about the affairs of the Gaspard family and whether Christophe had yet married (he hadn’t). Hiding behind Ashe was a coward’s ploy, but Sylvain had never claimed to be a strong man, and he relished the respite, savoring each moment of freedom.

But, like all good things, it eventually came to an end.

Today’s lunch, just over halfway into Ashe’s visit, was a restrained affair, pared down to just Sylvain and his mother, attended only by a lone maid. Ashe—dear friend and human shield against prying parental questions—was dining with a merchant family, discussing transport of goods into the capital and road conditions.

So here Sylvain was—trapped and stirring his stew, aimless and notably not hungry—as he avoided his mother’s gaze and anticipated the heavy clang of expectations for the future chaining themselves once more around his neck.

He did not have to wait long.

“Tell me, Sylvie,” Emmeline said, voice airy and casual, pausing to swallow a sip of her favorite red wine, “Why have you been so secretive lately? You know you can tell me anything right?”

Her tact was subtle, more patient than Constantine’s, but the goal no less obvious. Apparently it was his mother’s turn to harass him about his life, when she hadn’t cared in the least before. No doubt his father had complained about his “odd behavior.” They’d been antsy about heirs since before Miklan’s departure, and had been nothing short of incensed in the last few months. How dare Sylvain find fulfillment in anything other than what his parents desired of him.

“Everything’s fine,” Sylvain said, plastering on his worst grin. He forced himself to spoon a heaping gulp of stew into his mouth. While no worse than usual, it was ashen on his tongue, the usual mild flavor empty and revolting.

“I mean it, darling, I want to help you! A mother always does her best for her children.”

Right. Just like she had done for Miklan when he’d been crushed under their father’s heel, just like she’d done when Miklan had turned that anger onto Sylvain.

“Oh, don’t worry, mother, there’s nothing worth your concern.”

“Have any of the charming ladies you’ve met caught your eye?” Emmeline asked, voice teasing.

Sylvain barked out a laugh. “Sorry, Mother, no.” He shrugged. “Besides, I haven’t met anyone new in a few weeks, we’ve been busy with the Gaspard delegation’s visit.”

Emmeline hummed, taking another sip. “That’s true. I do hope you’ll find a good girl to marry soon. You’ve just turned twenty-three… Why, by the time I was twenty-three, I had already been married for two years and was pregnant with… Ah…”

 _With Miklan_.

She cleared her throat. “Well, I think you should try to be a little kinder to these girls. Surely there’s one who would make for an excellent lady of the house—there’s no need for any other frivolity.”

No need for love in Gautier, not in his family, not in his future marriage, not for the town he’d be tied to for the rest of his sorry life.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Sylvain said, shoveling down another spoonful of his meal.

“Hmm… Perhaps it would be better if your father and I took those concerns off your plate?”

Sylvain froze, heart pounding, ice creeping through his blood as it threatened to overwhelm him. Surely he’d misunderstood. If he lost his right to reject the girls or scare them away, raucous wedding bells would ring, and far too soon. “I promise, Mother, there’s nothing to worry about. I’m sure…” He choked back the urge to retch. “I’m sure the right girl will come along soon.”

“I hope so too, Sylvie.” Emmeline shook her head, small and wistful. “I want nothing more than for you to be happily married.”

Sylvain could see it: a faceless girl pushing a gold band onto his finger, the lock and key sealing his fate, his gilded cage turning to solid stone, the last dregs of liberty crushed to dust and lost among the wind.

Sylvain smiled, a pained grimace pulling at his lips, and he waved his hand, meaningless and empty. “Eventually, I guess?”

“Yes, one day… Really, Sylvie, until then, until you have a wife to take care of you—you can rely on your dear mother, you know that, right?” Sylvain could almost buy the false tears welling in her eyes.

“I know,” Sylvain said, lying through his teeth, an edge of flint rising in his tone. “I’ll tell you if there’s anything. But for now, let’s just have lunch! Like you’ve said, we don’t want to ruin perfectly good food with heavy talk.”

Emmeline sighed, setting her wine glass on the table. She seemed to shrink in on herself, eyes unseeing as she stared into her plate, but only for a moment. She collected herself and perked up, downing the rest of her wine in one gulp.

“Of course, Sylvie, you’re right.”

* * *

Ashe would be leaving soon.

Sylvain’s two weeks of his life as blissful mirage would end tomorrow, finalized with the clap of a carriage door closing and the steady clip-clop of stallions retreating into the distance. The parade of noble marriage prospects would charge in once more, the manacles of fate clicking in place, and the manor’s expansive halls would again ring only with the sounds of silence and solemnity.

Sylvain grabbed a handful of sand and watched the grains trail out of his clenched fist, a mockery of the seconds slipping away from him.

The sounds of the sea could not soothe him as he sat, baleful, watching as Ashe tread water, commending Felix on his swordplay. The steel of the blade glinted as the late afternoon’s waning sunlight played off its edge, dancing with each crisp thrust and parry at Felix’s imagined enemy. His balance was imperfect, no doubt more used to moving against the pressure of water, but he was mesmerizing as he twisted and turned, power and grace woven together into a single being.

Sylvain had been surprised when Felix agreed to come to the beach today, but in hindsight, it had actually been unsurprising because _Ashe_ was the one who asked. Felix couldn’t be bothered to plan for Sylvain, but for Ashe, he could be amenable. He’d even brought one of his swords, not just the story of how he’d found it, and been eager to demonstrate his prowess.

If it was praise he wanted, Sylvain could give that in spades. He _had_ given it in spades. He could not step out far enough into the water to reach a depth where Felix could move freely, but he had words aplenty, more elegant and more admiring than anything Ashe could say, and he’d be here after today, to shower Felix in the applause he deserved.

The water sparkled, tantalizing, beckoning Sylvain to its eerie depths, a facade of innocence he wanted to fall for but knew he could not. He hadn’t successfully swum since he was eleven. A little bit of petty jealousy couldn’t magically fix his fear.

Sylvain dropped the rest of his sand and let out a low laugh. It was ridiculous for Sylvain to believe that he could ever give Felix what he deserved, in Gautier or not; he could believe that he had time, that he had freedom, that he was worthy to be Felix’s friend—but one day it would come crashing down when the final golden noose strung itself onto his finger and he was fully, rightfully Lord Gautier. Better for Felix to have a friend in Ashe: someone reliable, even at a distance; an ally who could not, would not disappoint him.

“Sylvain!” Ashe called, waving at him.

Sylvain brushed the remaining sand from his hands and pushed to his feet. “Yeah?”

Ashe turned to Felix and spoke, the words incomprehensible over the expanse of water between them, and gestured in Sylvain’s direction. Sylvain saw Felix’s scoff, and his heart sank.

“Sylvain! You’ve been sitting there glaring at us, at least get your feet wet before we have to leave!”

Sylvain grinned, uneasy, as Ashe beckoned. It was now or never to prove to Felix that he wasn’t a complete coward. And maybe, to prove to himself that he did truly want to swim again. He couldn’t hold onto that one childhood incident forever.

He shrugged. “Yeah, maybe.”

Ashe turned and dove, stroking and kicking the short distance back toward the beach. Felix followed at a reluctant distance, the tip of his sword bobbing just above the water line.

Ashe paused as his feet reached sand, and he stared, his mouth twisted in a puzzled frown, at Sylvain. “Is something wrong?”

“No, no, everything’s great! I’m just…” Sylvain said, scrubbing a hand through his hair, “I’m not sure I’m feeling up to it today, y’know? I’d _like_ to swim, but just. Not right now?”

“Okay…?”

Felix scoffed. “You are scared.”

“Me, scared? _Nah_.”

“You are scared, and you do not face your fear,” Felix said, his frown cold and accusatory. “It is okay to fear, but you have to fight.”

“No, I don’t,” Sylvain said. The memory of cold, dark pressure pulling him down from all sides rose unbidden and an irrepressible shiver jolted through him. “I really, _really_ don’t.”

“Ah… Would you like us to help?” Ashe cut in, quiet and thoughtful. “Or really, Felix to, since I’ll be gone after today.”

Sylvain scratched his cheek. “I’m good. I think I’m good. I just—I used to want to swim. So maybe I still do? I don’t know.” He was rambling. He had to pull it together. Sylvain exhaled, slow and heavy. “I mean. I, uh—I just miss it, sometimes, y’know?”

Ashe frowned. “I’m afraid I don’t. Did something happen?”

“Oh, uh. Nothing. Nothing!”

“Do you want to learn to swim?” Felix asked, straight to the point.

“I know how!” Sylvain said, protesting. “At least, I used to.”

“Well, swimming’s not something you forget…” said Ashe.

“It’s not—I just haven’t, in a while.”

“Do you want to swim?” Felix said again, his eyes fixed on Sylvain.

Did he? Did he miss being able to trust the water that much? Was he desperate for another way to connect with Felix?

Fuck, _yes_ , he wished his relationship with the sea was as uncomplicated as it had all those years ago, before Miklan had ruined it all.

“I—yes. Yeah… I do.”

“Then I will teach you,” said Felix, resolute. “If you want to learn, I will teach you.”

“You will?

“Yes,” Felix said. “But not today. It is late. I should return before Father or Dimitri worry.”

Ashe blinked, his head glancing over his shoulder to check the horizon. “Oh, you’re right.” He turned back and nodded to Sylvain. “It’s nearly sunset, isn’t it? We should return for supper and so I can speak to my staff tonight regarding any last preparations before we leave in the morning…”

Gautier Manor, uninviting and void of affection, flashed through Sylvain’s mind. He swallowed down the bile turning in his stomach. “Y-yeah. It’s getting late.”

“It was really wonderful meeting you,” Ashe said, turning to take Felix’s hand. Felix offered him a single shake.

“Come visit soon. Keep me sane from this dumbass.”

“Hey,” Sylvain said, affronted. “Isn’t that what _I’m_ supposed to say?”

Eyes sparkling, Ashe touched his chin and pretended to think. “I don’t know… I think I might have to agree with Felix here.”

“Yes, because I am right.” Felix said as he shot Sylvain a smug grin.

“Bullies, you and Ashe both.”

Ashe laughed. “Only because we care about you.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

* * *

“Thank you for having me,” Ashe said, yawning.

The sun’s barest whispers were just beginning to creep over the horizon, and the first, still-sleepy mutterings of Gautier servants shuffling to their places rumbled in muted tones around them. Outside the manor’s entrance, Ashe’s driver slowly led the Gaspard family’s stallions into their places at the head of the carriage.

Sylvain tugged Ashe into a hug, clapping him on the back. “Thanks for visiting. I missed you.”

Ashe patted Sylvain, gentle and consoling. “I’ll come to see you again soon.”

“And Felix, I’m sure.”

“Him, too,” Ashe agreed. “But also for you. You’re my friend, not just my host. I’ve stuck by you this long, I’m not going to abandon you now.”

Sylvain huffed. “Thanks, man.”

Ashe stepped back, leaving Sylvain with one last squeeze on the shoulder before darting down the front steps toward his carriage. He nodded as the driver gave him a deep bow, ready for his two day ride back to the capital, and paused with one foot in the vehicle to open and close his mouth, a reprimand to use his name once more poised on his tongue. After a moment, he shook his head and closed it, turning to shoot Sylvain a single wave before clambering fully in and letting the door snap closed behind him.

Sylvain watched as the Gaspard coach disappeared back down the hill, taking with it Sylvain’s momentary reprieve from Gautier’s expectations; as it retreated, the weight of Sylvain’s chains sank in once more, laden with lofty legends of generations past and ready to dress him in bride and bridle for the role he must embody until the end of his days.

Offering a single wave to the warming morning air, Sylvain turned back into the house and placed one foot before the other, taking the well-tread path back to the gaudily-furnished room that served as his cage.

—

Sylvain sat on the sand, hard, and jutted his lower lip forward; Felix hadn’t even let him say hello before telling him to get ready to swim.

The weeks since Ashe’s departure had been nothing short of draining, filled with sudden meetings with various stewards and papered in letters to merchants enjoying calm seas and skies, all vying to have their wares sold at the highest possible price. Sylvain’s parents had scheduled two more marriage proposals, both with vapid girls who could no more hold a thought in their airy heads than pretend the corsets and stuffing around their chests made for pleasing breasts, and he’d sent them packing as efficiently as he could.

Today marked the first time Sylvain had seen Felix since Ashe’s departure, his first covert excursion to their beach, the longest gap in their meetings since Sylvain had first found Felix.

And, unfortunately, Felix had not forgotten his promise to teach Sylvain to swim in the intervening weeks.

Felix snorted. “You told me you wanted—you want to learn to swim again. No hiding.”

“I’m starting to think that was a mistake.”

Felix’s tail flicked a small spray of seawater at him. “You are capable of this. Take off your feet-clothes. And any other things you do not want to get wet.”

Sylvain sighed, low and exaggerated, and knelt down to untie his shoes. “I don’t know why you still want to call them ‘foot-clothes,’” he said, kicking off well-maintained leather. “I know you know how to say shoes.”

“I am naming them what they are.”

“Sure, Felix. You don’t even _wear_ any clothes, so you’re the absolute expert on them.”

“Human words don’t make sense.” Felix waved his hand, impatient. “Stop delaying. Come here.”

“Do we have to swim? Didn’t you also want to help me practice my Mermish?”

“Later. We swim first. Do not be a scared baby tortoise hiding in the sand.”

Sylvain stripped off his shirt, an eon passing with each button. He paused at every brass pin, each movement an offer for Felix to rescind his demand and take the opportunity instead to enjoy the sun, free of any uncomfortable wetness and the inevitability of salt crusting Sylvain’s hair.

Felix watched him, unamused, and gestured again for Sylvain to hurry up. With a whimper, he stepped out of his trousers and folded his clothes to let them rest atop his shoes, where they could avoid sea and sand.

“There, happy?” Sylvain said, turning back to Felix, arms open. The merman stared at him, mouth agape, gaze lost somewhere around Sylvain’s shoulders. “Felix?”

“What?” Felix snapped, reverting to Mermish. Sylvain bit back a grin at the blush rising in his cheeks. “Get in the water.”

Sylvain plodded forward, steps and posture drooping as he placed first one foot then the other into the still-cold sea. Though summer had recently passed its peak, the water’s temperature was still rising and would not crest for about another month. Sylvain shivered, dramatic and whining, as the waves crested against his bare thighs.

“Felix, it’s _cold_.”

Felix leveled him a flat look. “Cold. In late summer.”

“I’m a human, I’m more sensitive to the water temperature than you are!”

“I think you are looking for an excuse to run away.”

“I’m not _running away_ , I’m being sensible.”

“What is sensible is learning how to swim properly.” Felix splashed the water’s surface, hitting Sylvain’s face and chest. “Come.”

Sylvain stepped further, sinking into the water as it rose to cover his midriff. He paused as the chill burrowed into his core and a wave of unease passed over him, his heartbeat rabbiting.

Felix extended a hand. “Sylvain. Try?”

Try, so he could once more find his love for swimming and the open sea. Try, so that Felix could be proud of him. Try, so that Felix would know he cared.

Sylvain took a deep breath and then another. He leaned forward, his right leg rising slowly to step just another small pace forward, and panic spiked in his veins. Reeling backward, Sylvain shook his head.

“Felix—Felix, I’m sorry, I’m _sorry_. I _can’t_.”

“Can’t?”

“I want to, I really want to—to take your hand, to swim with you, but I can’t.”

Sylvain leaned forward, unsteady on his feet—all at once, water rushed toward him.

“Stupid!” A voice chided, anger and fear bleeding together, and hands anchored under his armors, holding his head above water. Sylvain heaved, breath short and rapid, tears stinging his eyes

“Stupid.” Again, softer, the body holding Sylvain’s leading him back toward the beach. Felix switched to Mermish, mumbling in frustrated tones to himself. “Fuck, _fuck_. I should have known that would be too much. You pushed yourself too far, you absolute imbecilic _fool_. Don’t do that.”

“But I’m your fool, right?” Sylvain replied, leaning heavily against the merman, his voice soft and uncertain against the still-troublesome tones of Felix’s native tongue.

“Shut up. You’re going to be no one’s anything if you can’t take care of yourself.”

“I tried… to tell you.”

Felix’s shoulders sagged and, for a moment, Sylvain slipped. His pulse quickened again, the inevitability of sinking chilling his veins, but Felix righted them and tightened his grip once more. “I know. I was… I was wrong.”

“Yeah.”

Felix pulled them onto the shoreline and settled Sylvain back against soft sand, hands careful and gaze soft as he assessed Sylvain’s breathing. Sylvain shot him a weak smile and melted, boneless, into the reassurance of solid earth beneath him. The merman propped himself next to Sylvain and laced their fingers together.

Felix sighed. “Do you still want to learn how to swim?”

“Mmm,” Sylvain said, turning to loop his free arm around Felix’s waist and bury his face against where his hip would be were he a human. “Not today. But maybe next time.”

“Next time.”

“Next time,” Sylvain agreed.

* * *

Within Gautier manor, the night air was gentle and cooling, soothing after the intense heat that had swept along the coast for the past week; it was relief granted by a day of torrential rain. A breeze whispered carelessly as it danced through Sylvain’s open window, caresses soft as they tickled against the drapes and danced across his skin.

Sylvain shifted to unstick his back from the sheets below him, his mind replaying Felix’s promise to teach him—to help him once again find his way. He owed Felix so much, and he wanted to give his friend a token of his appreciation. Swords weren’t the easiest to come by, so Sylvain had marinated on the subject for weeks before finally stumbling upon a satisfactory idea earlier in the day.

Sylvain turned the pearl over in his hand, his eyes following each glitter and flash of filtered moonlight falling in through panes of glass. It was large and imperfect, flat on one side, a little lacking in lustre, and a pale coral in color; its tones shimmered in shades not unlike the vibrant colors of Felix’s eyes as he smirked, irises bright and reflective as the sun played.

Craftsmen would fall over themselves to turn such a richly colored pearl into a refined necklace, the prize centerpiece decorating a filigree chain of silver. Sylvain couldn’t wait to make their stomachs turn with their greed. Fitted to a setting, it would be a perfect gift for Felix. It might be silly to offer such a useless gift to someone as straightforward and practical Felix, but Sylvain could see it in his mind’s eye—the interplay of pinks and ambers, fiery against his skin, dazzling against the deep, midnights blues of his scales.

The pearl had caught his eye as he’d wandered the docks, the diver hawking his wares eagerly, jealously, determined to prove that _he_ was the superior swimmer—the only provider of the best, most prized fruit the sea could offer. Laughable, that any human thought they could prove better than Felix, but not without _some_ merit; the man’s array of pearls was impressive, though raw, and could fetch a healthy price with the right merchant.

The shimmering of this particular pearl had caught Sylvain’s eye, and without a second thought, he’d haggled his way into his purchase—several pieces of gold poorer, but richer for the humming anticipation budding in his heart.

Smile on his lips, gem warm in his palm, Sylvain drifted off to sleep.

* * *

Sylvain rushed through the manor, steps steady and sure as he traced the familiar path from entrance to dining hall.

Sylvain hadn’t meant to arrive late to supper, had left this afternoon with plenty of time to spare, but the traveling craftsman he’d met with had been nearly salivating at his request to turn the large colored pearl into a carefully-ornamented necklace. It had taken a fair bit more haggling than intended, as well as the promise of extra silver in concert with Sylvain’s satisfaction. By the time snide, self-satisfied palms were finally sufficiently greased, the sun had already begun to fall, and Sylvain had been forced to return home at a quicker pace than he would have liked. That he paused to offer his compliments to several of the towns’ lovely ladies was inconsequential.

Sylvain stopped at the mirror in the entryway, just long enough to straighten his shirt and run his fingers through his hair, before turning toward the dining room and walking in, winking at a maid as he passed.

The sight inside gave him pause.

In their usual places sat Sylvain’s mother and father, their soups untouched and cooling before them. Across from them, in the seat beside Sylvain’s usual, sat a small girl, clad in silk and chiffon, her hands twisting and untwisting among the lavenders of her gown. The gown was made of expensive materials, and the colors shimmered in periwinkle and heliotrope in the heavy torch-light of the dining hall—a dress worthy of a well-planned event.

An event that Sylvain had not known was happening.

Foreboding rose in his gut, thick and cloying, the stench of his father’s plot an inescapable smoke blanketing Sylvain’s lungs. If the endless parade of marriage proposals was the bane of Sylvain’s existence, then there was no doubt that an _unannounced_ dinner with a well-dressed, unknown girl spelled his doom.

“You’re late. Sylvain, sit down.” Constantine said, his expression glacial as he tipped his glass in the girl’s direction. “Meet Miss Bernadetta von Varley.”

Sylvain forced a stiff smile onto his lips and stepped—jerky and off-kilter even though his forced composure—the final few paces to the setting where his own soup sat, unappetizing and chilled. He plopped into it, turning to offer Bernadetta a blazing grin. “Miss Bernadetta! It’s great to make your acquaintance.”

The girl squeaked, shoulders quivering, and she shrank in on herself, drawing as far as she could from Sylvain. “U-uh. Um! Hello, my name is Bernadetta von Varley… P-please don’t—!” She cut herself off, hands rising to clamp over her mouth as she turned away, mortified.

“Miss von Varley is the daughter of Count Varley, whose land is about half a day south beyond Enbarr,” said Constantine. “She’s well-bred and her father claims her well-mannered, though… I have my reservations as to the latter.”

He threw Bernadetta a look of disdain before continuing.

“Her family has been growing in favor with the crown and is looking to expand their influence toward the coasts. As they have ties to the capital, they are a useful ally to have, and a relationship with the Varleys will be greatly beneficial to both families.”

Constantine paused to take a draft from his glass.

The spiderwebbed threads of Sylvain’s father’s plans twitched together, pulling taut against his prey. There was only one logical conclusion to the sudden, strange events of tonight’s meal, but staring into the maw of the beast that was the collapse of his fate sent dread roaring in Sylvain’s blood; the fear was all at once ice-cold and white-hot, the blazing feeling of being thrown heart-first into the sun.

“She will be staying with us for the foreseeable future. It is in your best interest to get to know her well. If you are visiting the town, take her with you, let the townspeople see you two together. It will be good for them and for her.”

Out of the corner of his eye, Sylvain could see Bernadetta fidget, her breathing rapid and terrified. Her eyes stared forward, boring holes into the fork on her place setting, and her teeth dug into her lower lip to keep any sound from escaping. Beneath the table, her hands kneaded against the fabric of her skirts.

“Sorry—I think I missed something,” Sylvain said, innocence saccharine in his voice. “I’m not sure I understand? Why is Miss von Varley staying with us?”

Constantine threw him a self-satisfied, wide grin. “Why, we have a wedding to plan!”

The ice in Sylvain’s veins snapped solid and he stared at his father, smile cracked and eyes wide. Bernadetta whimpered beside him, her hand rattling around her glass as her gaze darted around the hall, afraid to look too long at any one subject.

“W-wedding?”

It couldn’t be true. It _couldn’t_.

The signs he had brushed away. Constantine’s growing displeasure, Emmeline’s sudden interest in his well-being, the oppressive, _repressive_ atmosphere growing heavier day by day—everything had come to a head. Sylvain had never thought that his freedom could shatter so suddenly.

Emmeline threw Bernadetta a pitying look, simpering and shallow, and raised her own glass. “To the happy couple!”

Sylvain choked. “H-happy?”

Beside him, Bernadetta trembled, like a frail, newborn leaf clinging to its branch, terrified of being blown away. Her hand crawled along the table’s surface to grasp at her own glass, and she raised it shakily.

“Cheers!” Emmeline continued, her smile beatifical as she took a heavy draught of the wine.

“C-cheers…” Bernadetta repeated, small and uncertain, glass barely rising.

“Cheers!” echoed Constantine, smug and victorious.

As one, his parents turned to him, and Sylvain grasped his own glass, hard enough that he swore it should have cracked.

“…Cheers.”

* * *

The following morning found Sylvain rising late, eyes heavy from a night of restless tossing and turning, still weighted with the evening’s revelations, head resting in his hands as he trudged his way to his desk. A marriage to Miss Bernadetta von Varley, a girl he had only just met. A girl whose temperament he did not hate, but a girl he would likely never love.

Sylvain sighed, slumping slightly as he reached for the first of his stack of the day’s work.

Innocuous, unassuming, and plain—the envelope resting on Sylvain’s heap of records and receipts was as unthreatening as could be, nothing strange in its weight or coloration. Only the lack of an addresser could mark it as suspicious. Still, instinctive fear rippled in Sylvain’s gut and he cut it open with trepidation, anxious for what it might contain.

The events of the past week had heralded his doom, and this letter could bring nothing but further omens. Pulling out the single folded page, Sylvain sank into his seat, his hands fighting the slightest tremor as he peeled apart the layers of paper.

Familiar handwriting and a simple, hateful signature greeted him as his eyes took in the words, and he dropped the letter as if scalded.

_To the upstart fuck who stole everything from me,_

_I hear the old man’s planning on setting you up to marry the daughter of some money-grubbing count from the capital. Isn’t that fucking grand? My flawless, spoiled brat of a younger brother, getting married. How wonderful. How perfect. Just the always praiseworthy little Sylvie and his new doll of a bride._

_Goddess, you and our shitty parents make me sick._

_Little birdie says our dear old dad wants to have the wedding on one of those new-fangled ships. One of the ones that can hit 15 or 17 knots. Gotta make sure you know your place and how to deal with water and all that, isn’t that right? Not so hot now, are you, you prissy bitch._

_Still haven’t convinced him that you can’t sail? Bet you haven’t, he’s a stubborn old fucker. Alas, if only you could live up to all of Father’s dreams._

_Maybe those monsters you’re always going on about will crash the wedding and give you what you deserve. I hope you and your darling, new bride rot in hell. Or maybe just at the bottom of the sea. Either way, it’s what you deserve._

_Miklan_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> as always, come find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/euphemeas)!
> 
> update 2020/06/22: this is temporarily on hiatus until august as i'm working on another longfic project. thank you to everyone for sticking with me, and i hope to be back to this as soon as possible!


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